by Sharon Rondeau
(Jul. 8, 2023) — In comments Saturday afternoon prior to his appearance at a campaign event in Nevada, 45th President of the United States and 2024 Republican candidate Donald J. Trump claimed that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s closest-polling but still distant primary competitor, “is desperately trying to get out of the Presidential race.”
Referring to DeSantis with the name coined by Trump’s one-time adviser and longtime Republican political activist, Roger Stone, as “DeSanctimonious,” Trump also contended that his former White House strategist, Steve Cortes, who threw his support behind the DeSantis campaign, “thinks that Ron should get out NOW, while the getting is still good.”
Trump has claimed Cortes turned on him because “I didn’t give him the job he wanted.”
In a variety of polls, Trump has been demonstrating a lead double-digits higher than DeSantis, with the margin and campaign donations growing following the Biden Justice Department’s indictment of Trump on 37 counts of mishandling “classified” documents after he left the White House.
Some in the media have stressed DeSantis’s precipitous drop in the polls, terming his campaign “lackluster” and touting “extremist policies.”
On Thursday, Reuters reported, “Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis raised $20 million in the second quarter of the year, his campaign said on Thursday, a sign that the Florida governor’s challenge to former President Donald Trump remains viable despite recent struggles.” However, the paper acknowledged the Trump campaign’s reported receipts of “$35 million” during the same time period.
Further, Trump contended in his remarks Saturday, Cortes “said that Donald Trump is the best Presidential debater ever, and can’t be beaten at the debate game.”
“Thank you Steve!” [sic] he remarked parenthetically.
On Tuesday, CNN reported that Cortes “acknowledges [the] campaign is ‘way behind’ Trump” and that “It’s an uphill battle.”
“If we do not prevail — and I have every intent on winning, I didn’t sign up for this to come in second —,” Politico quoted Cortes as having said on July 3, “but if we do not prevail I will tell you this, we will make President Trump better for having this kind of primary.”
Trump on Saturday also floated the possibility of “entering the debates,” which begin next month and Trump said he would shun given his sizable lead over the remaining Republican primary field. Given Cortes’s acknowledgement of his debate expertise, Trump mused, “maybe I should enter the debates – But, then again, when you have a 40 to 50 point lead over the field, maybe I shouldn’t???”
Finally, Trump posited, “…I do better one on one against Ron DeSanctimonious than I do with a field of candidates, large or small. Personally, I don’t think it matters. MAGA!!!”
