DeSantis doubts ‘narrative’ Trump would be different in a second term

Florida governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis expressed doubt over the idea that former President Donald Trump would rule differently as president, should he win reelection.

DeSantis, who is competing against Trump and other candidates in the Republican Party’s 2024 primary race, was told how some believe that Trump becoming president again would be “a threat to democracy,” and he was asked if he agreed with this sentiment. The Florida governor responded by stating that Trump failed to take actions as president that he could have taken but chose not to.

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“And so I understand there’s a narrative saying he’s going to be much different this next term, but I look back — you know, ‘what didn’t he do?'” DeSantis asked during an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “He didn’t move forcefully to build the border wall. That languished for years. He didn’t fire people like Anthony Fauci from the COVID task force when many conservatives, including me in Florida, were saying they needed to go in a different direction.”

DeSantis noted that Trump has criticized many people who worked in his administration since leaving the White House, even though it was in his power to fire them. He also criticized Trump for not taking any steps “to curb the administrative state.”

“So I think what is being said would be him acting in ways that actually were not how he acted before,” DeSantis said. “He deferred a lot of his presidency to some of these people that he now criticizes.”

The concerns some have expressed about Trump becoming president again stem from when Trump was asked if he would only spend his first day in office as a dictator, to which Trump said, “No, other than day one.”

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Trump is leading the Republican primary race for 2024, beating out DeSantis and other Republican candidates in the race, including business entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. It comes as Jeff Roe, a chief strategist for the super PAC supporting DeSantis, stepped down from his role in the super PAC over the weekend.

The next major event in the 2024 primary race is the next Republican debate, which will be held in New Hampshire on Jan. 18 next year and hosted by ABC News. The debate is being held only a few days before the Jan. 21 CNN debate in the same location and the Jan. 23 GOP primary.