‘I Don’t Ask Him’: Even Trump Doesn’t Know If DeSantis Is Running In ’24

As the 2024 presidential election approaches (sure, there are 868 days until Election Day, but who’s counting?), reports have swirled that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) won’t run if former President Donald Trump does.

But don’t look for that quote — it doesn’t exist.

Trump, though, has said that if he throws in his hat, DeSantis won’t. “I do think if I run, he won’t,” Trump said in December 2021. “I know they try and create a friction. I don’t think it exists at all. It might, you know, you never know. If he wanted to run, that’s OK with me. I think we’d win by a lot. But he’s good. And he’s done a good job as governor.”

And for his part, DeSantis, playing coy like all politicians, says he’s plenty happy just serving the people of Florida. “I’m not considering anything beyond doing my job. We got a lot of stuff going on in Florida. I’m going to be running for reelection next year,” DeSantis said in September 2020.

So, essentially, nobody knows anything. But now we at least know that Trump hasn’t even asked DeSantis if he’s making a presidential run in 2024.

“I don’t know if Ron is running, and I don’t ask him,” Trump told The New Yorker in an interview for an upcoming cover story. “It’s his prerogative. I think I would win.”

The piece also exposes some friction between the two.

“The thing that grated most was that, as Trump considered running in 2024, DeSantis did not rule out a campaign of his own. The more plausible DeSantis has become as a nominee, the more people have speculated that he might decide to take on Trump,” the magazine said.

The author wrote: “Trump told me that he was ‘very close to making a decision’ about whether to run…. In nearly every poll of likely Republican contenders, Trump still has a solid advantage: DeSantis’s constituency was Trump’s first. Trump seems to want to keep it that way. A consultant who has worked for several Republican candidates said that the former President had talked with confidants about ways to stop DeSantis: ‘Trump World is working overtime to find ways to burn DeSantis down. They really hate him.’”

Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

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