Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) floated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Sunday as a possible 2024 presidential candidate.
Gaetz suggested during an interview on Fox News that the Biden administration is trying to defame him in anticipation of a potential run four years from now, WFLA reported.
“What Ron DeSantis didn’t say, which is the truth, is that the Biden folks know that if Donald Trump is not the candidate in 2024, the leader of our movement will be Ron DeSantis,” he said.
“He is a strong potential presidential candidate in 2024. The Biden team knows that, and so they’re trying to somehow cast aspersions on the Florida experience because you know what, throughout America, there’s a lot of Florida envy right now,” Gaetz continued.
However, Gaetz tweeted Sunday that former President Donald Trump is more likely to be a candidate in 2024 than President Joe Biden, and “everyone on both sides knows it”:
DeSantis has not publicly acknowledged speculation on a presidential bid in 2024, according to the WFLA report.
Meanwhile, in late January the governor touted Florida’s successes as many blue states continued restricting their residents’ activities, declaring that his state is open, Breitbart News reported.
“Every Floridian has the right to earn a living. Florida is open, and we’ve got your back,” he said.
“Florida also led and continues to lead on protecting the livelihoods of our people. While so many other states kept locking people down, Florida lifted people up,” the governor continued.
In early February, DeSantis announced a big push to curb Big Tech’s political bias and censorship “with measures including a ban on the censorship of political candidates and mandatory opt-outs of content filters for citizens of the Sunshine State,” Breitbart News reported.
“These platforms have changed from neutral platforms that provided Americans with the freedom to speak to enforcers of preferred narratives,” the governor said during a press conference.
“Consequently, these platforms have played an increasingly decisive role in elections, and have negatively impacted Americans who dissent from orthodoxies favored by the Big Tech cartel,” he concluded.