DeSantis campaign calls Trump claim he might drop out of 2024 race ‘fake news’

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) presidential campaign Monday railed against former President Trump’s suggestion that DeSantis might drop out of the 2024 presidential election, calling Trump’s claim “fake news.” 

“This is fake news,” DeSantis’s press secretary Bryan Griffin wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Clearly, Donald Trump and his army of consultants are panicked about @RonDeSantis’ winning debate performance and the strong momentum that has followed.”

Griffin said Trump’s campaign “knows this is two-man race,” and pledged DeSantis will bring a win in the presidential primary. 

“Instead of pushing fake news from New Jersey, the Trump campaign should be focused on getting their candidate on the campaign trial in Iowa and on the debate stage before it’s too late,” Griffin continued, in reference to Trump’s notable absence from last week’s GOP primary debate stage.

In a Truth Social post Monday morning, Trump knocked DeSantis’s falling poll numbers and claimed he heard rumors DeSantis will be dropping out to run for Senate against Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) 

“Rumors are strong in political circles that Ron DeSanctimonious, whose Presidential run is in shambles and whose poll numbers have absolutely crashed, putting him 3rd and 4th in some states, will be dropping out of the Presidential race in order to run, in Florida, against Rick Scott for Senate. Now that’s an interesting one, isn’t it?” Trump wrote on Truth Social. 

Asked about the DeSantis campaign’s response, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign said DeSantis’s team “knows they’re on the last legs of their failed campaign.” 

“Their candidate botched the debate, continues to plummet in the polls, and frivolously wasted their donor’s precious resources for a vanity project that was dead on arrival since the very start,” a Trump campaign spokesperson wrote in a statement to The Hill. 

DeSantis has held steady in second place in polls, but despite attempts to reset his campaign, he has struggled to gain ground against Trump, who maintains a wide lead.

A new poll from Emerson College showed Trump saw a slight decrease in his support among Republican primary voters — from 56 percent to 50 percent — following the first GOP debate last week.

Meanwhile, DeSantis got a slight boost to 12 percent, up 2 points from before the debate.