trumps cult animosity shows sign letting

Trumps cult animosity shows sign letting full#

DeSantis - and to believe that he is owed dividends and deference. As with other Republicans he has endorsed, the former president appears to take a kind of ownership interest in Mr. DeSantis survived the general election and has often governed in a style that mirrors his patron, slashing at the left and scrapping with the news media. DeSantis’s bid for governor and sent in staff to help him, lifting the lawmaker to a victory over a better-known rival for the party’s nomination. DeSantis, an Ivy League-educated military veteran and smooth-talking defender of the new president, was exactly what Mr. Trump, who was then the president, spotted him on television and took keen interest. DeSantis was a little-known Florida congressman in 2017, when Mr. Trump made no reference to the governor at a rally in Arizona on Saturday. His restraint is a break from the mockery and bullying he often uses to attack Republicans he perceives as vulnerable. DeSantis, who is a distant but potent second to him in polls on the 2024 G.O.P. Trump, a longtime student of charisma and mass appeal, as well as an avid reader of polling, has refrained so far from publicly attacking Mr. “He’s Trump but a little smarter, more disciplined and brusque without being too brusque.” “DeSantis would be a formidable 2024 candidate in the Trump lane should Trump not run,” said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor. DeSantis is often the first name Republicans cite as a possible Trump-style contender not named Trump. 6 riot at the Capitol have some Republicans looking for a fresh start. DeSantis has not challenged - and his role in the events leading to the Jan. The former president’s false claims about fraud in the 2020 election - which Mr. Trump and his aides are mindful of Republicans’ increasingly public fatigue with the drama that trails Mr. DeSantis, who is up for re-election this year, has not declared his plans, he is widely believed to be eyeing the presidency. Trump has made no secret of his preparations for a third run for the White House. DeSantis “will be personal and political friends for the rest of their careers.” “They’re the two most important leaders in the Republican Party,” said Brian Ballard, a longtime Florida lobbyist with connections to both men, predicting Mr.

Trump’s coattails.Īlready, party figures are attempting to calm matters. That refusal has set up a generational clash and a test of loyalty in the de facto capital of today’s G.O.P., one watched by Republicans elsewhere who’ve ridden to power on Mr. Trump’s expectation that he bend the knee is asking too much. That includes the 43-year-old DeSantis, who has told friends he believes Mr. They are led by a defeated former president who demands total fealty, brooks no criticism and is determined to sniff out, and then snuff out, any threat to his control of the party. DeSantis - a once-loyal member of the Trump court - wielding the knife made the tension about much more.Īt its core, the dispute amounts to a stand-in for the broader challenge confronting Republicans at the outset of midterm elections. Now his defense of the vaccines - even if often subdued and almost always with the caveat in the same breath that he opposes mandates - has put him uncharacteristically out of step with the hard-line elements of his party’s base and provided an opening for a rival.īut that it was Mr. Trump amplified about public health expertise have only spiraled since he left office. The back and forth exposed how far Republicans have shifted to the right on coronavirus politics. Trump’s early handling of the pandemic and saying he regretted not being more vocal in his complaints. DeSantis shot back on Friday, criticizing Mr. DeSantis by blasting as “gutless” politicians who dodge the question out of fear of blowback from vaccine skeptics.

Trumps cult animosity shows sign letting full#

DeSantis refused to reveal his full Covid vaccination history, the former president publicly acknowledged he had received a booster. That long-stewing resentment burst into public view recently in a dispute over a seemingly unrelated topic: Covid policies. “The magic words,” Trump has said to several associates and advisers. Trump runs for the Republican nomination for president in 2024. With his stock rising fast in the party, the governor has conspicuously refrained from saying he would stand aside if Mr. Trump believes he put on the map, has been acting far less like an acolyte and more like a future competitor, Mr. Trump has been grumbling quietly to friends and visitors to his Palm Beach mansion about a rival Republican power center in another Florida mansion, some 400 miles to the north.