Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said Sunday that he will not serve as vice president to former President Donald Trump should the latter win the GOP’s nomination.
His reasoning is that “we need somebody that can serve two terms” and that Republicans “need somebody that can win states like Georgia and Arizona, which President Trump cannot do or did not do, even though candidates like [John] McCain and [Mitt] Romney had no problem winning those states.” He was referring to the failed Republican 2008 and 2012 presidential candidates, who both lost to President Barack Obama, a Democrat.
Before launching his campaign in May, Mr. DeSantis was seen by some Republican donors as a potential alternative to President Trump, as the former president faces legal hurdles after he was indicted four times. However, Mr. DeSantis’s poll numbers have dropped in recent months, and the second debate held on Sept. 27 didn’t appear to help, according to RealClearPolitics.
The remarks came after Mr. DeSantis and six other GOP presidential candidates took part in the second Republican presidential debate. President Trump again didn’t attend, saying that he’s too far ahead in the polls.
“They’re all job candidates,” President Trump said last week about the other GOP candidates, which was played for Mr. DeSantis during the Sunday interview. “They’ll do anything, secretary of something. They even say VP. I don’t know. Does anybody see any VP in the group? I don’t think so.”
Meanwhile, in yet another sign that Mr. DeSantis is continuing to go on the offensive against President Trump after refraining to do so for months, the Florida governor accused the former president of adopting the strategy used by Democratic candidate Joe Biden during the 2020 campaign.
“With all due respect to Donald Trump, we’re not going to beat the Democrats by adopting Joe Biden’s basement strategy,” Mr. DeSantis told Fox Business’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” He added: “You can’t just be missing in action. You got to show up, you got to earn people’s votes.”
“And if you’re not willing to do that, voters will take notice as we get closer to these contests,” he added.
In the Fox Business interview, the governor was asked about what his strategy is now amid his increasingly unfavorable poll numbers. He pivoted to saying that President Trump was not showing up for voters.
“You show up. You make the case. You don’t mail it in, you don’t go missing in action,” he said. “You meet voters on the ground in the early states, Iowa, New Hampshire in particular, and tell them about the future of the country and why you’re the best candidate.”
Without elaborating on the poll numbers, he continued: “So I think that I’ll be the guy. I’ve been the most dependable leader the Republican Party’s had in recent years. I’ve delivered. I haven’t just talked, and that’s what we need in Washington, the time for excuses is over.”
Since the second debate, President Trump has appeared to shift his focus on fellow GOP candidate Nikki Haley, the Trump administration’s former U.N. ambassador. In what appears to be a pet nickname for Mrs. Haley, the former president referred to her as a “birdbrain” who has told “plenty of lies.”
Casting Mrs. Haley as disloyal and untrustworthy, President Trump referred a public statement the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor said months ago.
The former president wrote on Truth Social: “‘I will never run against our great President,’ she said, ‘he has done an outstanding job.’ To which I responded, ‘How nice of you to say, Nikki,’ knowing full well that her words mean nothing.”
“She even came to Mar-a-Lago with her family, ‘bearing gifts.’ Anyway, Birdbrain doesn’t have the TALENT or TEMPERAMENT to do the job. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” he said.
In response, Mrs. Haley wrote on X that she believes his criticism of her means that her campaign is gaining traction. A handful of news outlets proclaimed that she “won” the first and second GOP debates, while RealClearAverage’s polling aggregation service shows that she’s been hovering at around 5 percent for weeks—trailing the former president by well over 50 percentage points.
