Showdown Ahead: How Will Trump ‘Handle’ DeSantis?

When Donald Trump said recently that he would “handle” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a prospective GOP 2024 presidential primary, what exactly did he mean? After fractious fights over the 2020 election and its aftermath, and more recently the House speakership, Republicans are praying that their party will unite with the 2024 election season already effectively underway, with many hoping against hope that Trump will cease and desist from continuing to talk down the shiniest rising star in the party’s constellation. But recent reports, on top of his hostile on-the-record statements about DeSantis, leave little room for doubt that Trump is planning a full-on scorched-earth takedown.

In fact, one Trump insider quoted in a recent expose by Rolling Stone says the former president is searching for ways to kick the Florida governor “in the n**s.” The leftist publication’s conclusion: “The former president’s determination to obliterate his ascendent rival underscores just how unwilling Trump is to pass the torch and surrender his stewardship of the GOP – even if it shreds the party.”

Trump has already claimed loudly that DeSantis would never have become governor without his intervention. And considering his past history, plus the fact Trump has publicly labeled DeSantis as “DeSanctimonious” and threatened to unmask dark truths about the Florida governor – “If he did run, I will tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering” – we should hardly be surprised.

Trump v DeSantis at the OK Corral

Despite unfavorable reaction in the ranks to his attacks on DeSantis, the 45th president continues to hold a surprisingly durable lead of more than a dozen points in polls measuring a still-theoretical matchup with the Florida governor and other projected presidential candidates such as Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, and Nikki Haley. However, DeSantis has yet to announce his expected candidacy, and the former president has not faced a challenger of the magnitude of DeSantis since he dispensed with a field of more than a dozen of the GOP’s best and brightest in the last competitive Republican presidential primary. But that was seven years ago. Trump was still in his sixties. DeSantis had yet to rear his head. The ugliness of the 2020 election and its aftereffects had yet to unfold. And DeSantis’ popularity had yet to explode as it did after his landslide re-election in 2022 and consequent end-to-end control of arguably the most crucial state in the GOP fold.

DeSantis would be wise to respond to Trump’s hostility by stipulating that Trump did indeed play a major role in getting him elected the first time – though Trump did not endorse him for re-election in 2022 despite boosting dozens of other candidates. He might equate it to a friend using his influence to get you a job. He can secure the position for you, but then you’re on your own to sink or swim. And after then-President Trump’s intervention undeniably tipped the 2018 gubernatorial toward DeSantis, the formerly little-known congressman has soared to heights unimaginable after he eked out an exceedingly narrow victory against a Democrat, Andrew Gillum, who later fell into disgrace. On matters of policy, DeSantis might be trying to separate himself from Trump on COVID-19 after his famously independent response to the virus and his recent call for a permanent ban on all mask and vaccine mandates in Florida. And there is no denying his leading role in the culture war, with his unrelenting attacks on wokeness clearly exemplified by his willingness to engage in battle with the cultural icon Disney.

Meanwhile, in a campaign with very little activity since he declared his candidacy in November, Trump has spent most of his time hammering away at President Joe Biden, drawing a striking contrast between his administration and the current one, and expressing his outrage over the treatment and incarceration of innocent participants in the rally-turned-riot at the US Capitol on 1/6/21. By most accounts, the former president has inquired repeatedly about dirt on DeSantis, whom he plans to label as a product of the political establishment – since he served three terms in Congress. And the former president is reportedly planning to go after him on his supposed low likability, an allegedly neoconservative foreign policy, and, of course, whatever personal dirt Trump is claiming to hold in his quiver.

It seems most Republicans have voted for Trump once or twice, and many will vote for him again. At the same time, DeSantis is essentially a Trump apostle – Trumpism without Trump – who has fired up the party faithful and gone places no one except Trump has gone before. Most Republicans favor one or the other. But the one thing they will not countenance is a pitched battle between the two favorites that would only weaken the eventual nominee for the big fight ahead against (as of now) Biden.