Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis met Sunday for the first time in months, with signs they are making peace after a difficult primary so Republicans can beat Joe Biden in November.
DeSantis ran against Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024, before dropping out on Jan. 21 after a lackluster finish in Iowa and endorsing the former president.
However, Florida’s chief executive has expressed skepticism about Trump, saying he has “too much baggage” to run for Trump’s vice president and saying some Republicans will never vote for him.
On the other hand, Trump ran scorched earth against DeSantis — or ‘DeSanctimonius,’ as he referred to him along the way — and his donors have expressed fury at the governor’s criticism.
DeSantis, whom Trump shot into the stratosphere with his gubernatorial endorsement in 2018, requested a meeting with Trump on Sunday in Miami in an attempt to make nice with their common enemy: Biden.
Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis met for the first time in months on Sunday, with signs they will make peace in a tough primary so Republicans can beat Joe Biden in November.
DeSantis, whom Trump shot into the stratosphere with his gubernatorial endorsement in 2017, requested a meeting with Trump on Sunday in Miami in an attempt to make nice with their common enemy: Joe Biden.
The meeting was organized by Florida real estate broker and Trump supporter Steve Witkoff, according to political.
Trump and DeSantis, according to several people interviewed, talked about how they could work together on the campaign trail.
Trump’s campaign confirmed that the meeting took place and described it as “good,” while several DeSantis donors praised the move as “smart” on the governor’s part.
Roy Bailey, finance chairman for DeSantis’ presidential campaign, thinks this is great news for Trump.
“It’s a big step forward and it makes a lot of sense for Trump, DeSantis and all Republicans,” he said.
‘Governor. DeSantis had a really strong volunteer finance team and if we could plug it in and help Trump, then that’s what we need to do and what we want to do. It is important to all get together and row in the same direction.”
The Florida governor, widely considered the future of the Republican Party and initially the favorite to defeat Trump after his re-election in 2022, announced he was suspending his campaign in a surprise video in late January.
This came after growing speculation that donors were fleeing and that his campaign was struggling to find a way to dent Trump’s huge lead in the polls.
Both Republicans want to see Biden defeated in November
DeSantis ran against Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024, before dropping out on Jan. 21 after a lackluster finish in Iowa and endorsing the former president.
However, Florida’s chief executive has expressed skepticism about Trump, saying he has “too much baggage” to run for Trump’s vice president and saying some Republicans will never vote for him.
DeSantis channeled Winston Churchill in his farewell video, calling Haley a “repackaged form of warmed-up corporatism.”
His final warning was to Republicans not to go back ‘in the past’ and confirmed that he would support Trump, the opponent who has mocked and humiliated him for the past year.
Despite repeatedly criticizing Trump for refusing to debate in the primary cycle and taking several hits from the former president calling him ‘Ron DeSanctimonious,’ the governor decided to endorse his former rival.
Trump said during an unannounced stop at his campaign headquarters in New Hampshire that after DeSantis’ announcement he has “officially retired” the “DeSanctimonious” nickname.
Throughout the campaign, Trump called DeSantis a ‘traitor’ for deciding to run for president in 2024 after the former president’s endorsement was what led him to the 2018 Republican nomination for governor of Florida.
Trump said during an unannounced stop at his New Hampshire campaign headquarters that after DeSantis’ announcement he has “officially retired” the “DeSanctimonious” nickname.
Throughout the campaign, Trump called DeSantis a ‘traitor’ for deciding to run for president in 2024 after the former president’s endorsement
“It’s clear to me that the majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” DeSantis said. “They see his presidency hampered by relentless resistance, and they see Democrats using the law today to attack him.”
And he added: ‘Trump is superior to the current incumbent Joe Biden. That is clean.’
“I signed a pledge to support the Republican candidate and I will honor that pledge.”
The pledge in question is what the Republican National Committee required all candidates to sign, promising to support the eventual nominee if they wanted to participate in its four primary debates last year. Trump never signed the pledge and refused to appear at the debates.
“We are honored by the endorsement of Governor Ron DeSantis and so many other former presidential candidates,” the Trump campaign wrote in a statement.
