Former President Trump isn’t sure if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, but he says he’s confident that he would beat him if he does.
“I don’t know if Ron is running, and I don’t ask him,” Trump told The New Yorker in an interview. “It’s his prerogative. I think I would win.”
Of course, it’s not the first time Trump has fired a warning shot at DeSantis, a former congressman who has risen to prominence among Republicans in recent years as he uses his perch in the Florida governor’s mansion to pursue a laundry list of ultra-conservative policies.
Trump has repeatedly teased a 2024 presidential bid since leaving the White House last year. In his interview with The New Yorker, he said that he was “very close to making a decision” on another campaign.
Still, DeSantis’s own potential political ambitions have irked Trump, who endorsed him during his 2018 gubernatorial bid and believes that he is responsible for DeSantis’s political success.
DeSantis has also repeatedly refused to rule out a presidential bid, declining on multiple occasions to say whether he would run if Trump decides to launch another campaign.
Trump has downplayed the notion of any tension between himself and DeSantis, telling The New Yorker that he and the Florida governor have a “very good relationship.”
For his part, DeSantis has brushed off any suggestion that he will mount a campaign for the White House in 2024, insisting that he’s focused only on his work in the governor’s mansion and winning reelection this year.
That hasn’t stopped chatter about his political future, however. And while early polling shows Trump as the favorite to win the 2024 Republican nomination, DeSantis often runs in second place. And in the event that Trump doesn’t run again, polling suggests that DeSantis would supplant him as the front-runner.