Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Tuesday responded to a question about former President Trump’s latest critiques, but the governor refused to criticize the former commander-in-chief, maintaining that attacks are coming “from all angles” and noting that his landslide victory in the state shows that his leadership style has been effective.
When asked about Trump’s latest critiques, DeSantis quickly responded, “What I would just say is this: I roll out of bed. I have people attacking me from all angles.”
“It’s been happening for many, many years and if you look at the good thing about it though is like if you take a crisis situation like COVID, you know, the good thing about it is when you’re an elected executive, you have to make all kinds of decisions,” he said, emphasizing the importance of steering “that ship” despite outside noise.
“And the good thing is, is that the people are able to render a judgment on that whether they reelect you or not,” he said, pointing to his significant victory in the Sunshine State, defeating former Democrat Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL) by roughly 1.5 million votes. That stands as a significant leap from the 2018 election, which saw DeSantis narrowly defeating Democrat Andrew Gillum by under 33,000 votes.
“Not only did we win reelection, we won with the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican governor candidate has in the history of the state of Florida,” he said, adding that he “almost doubled the previous record, which I think was like 780,000 vote margin.”
“And so what I would just say is that verdict has been rendered by the people of the state of Florida,” he said to applause.
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DeSantis’s remarks come on the heels of one of Trump’s latest attacks, in which the former president claimed he got the governor elected and accused DeSantis and his donors of being globalists.
“Ron DeSanctimonious, who I made Governor in BOTH the Primary & the General, is also a Globalist, & so are his donors,” Trump said in a TruthSocial post. “Jeb ‘Low Energy’ Bush was next to him last week. Check PAST!”
Despite the jabs from Trump, DeSantis has refused to criticize the former president, often pointing to the establishment media as the enemy and remarking on his massive victory in the midterm elections.
When asked about the rumored “civil war” between the two in November, DeSantis told reporters, “People just need to chill out.”
The seeming hostility from Trump comes as DeSantis has not publicly committed to refraining from running for president against Trump in 2024. However, DeSantis has also not publicly indicated that he plans to run, either.