DeSantis Defends Campaign Amid Concerns And Staff Layoffs
By Nikki Slusher
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is having trouble on the campaign frontline. Amidst multiple poor campaign strategies, the Republican presidential primary candidate has already begun laying off mid-level staffers to conserve funds after hitting a stalling point in fundraising.
Initially, DeSantis was hailed as a competitive Republican alternative to former President Donald Trump when he first entered the race. Since his failure to launch on Twitter Spaces episode, DeSantis has struggled to meet expectations in the polls and fundraising. Reports indicated that major GOP donors were looking into Republican South Carolina Senator Tom Scott as a viable option after DeSantis suffered pushback from the plethora of laws he recently passed in Florida, along with his culture wars and anti-woke platform that has started costing him support from the moderates and independents. His ongoing feud with Disney has also created its own controversy as he continues to try delaying the case in the courts.
In a rare appearance outside of conservative media outlets, DeSantis sat down with CNN’s Jake Tapper for a 15 minute interview to discuss his plans for the next six months leading up to the first Republican primary contest. DeSantis spent the interview attempting to reassert himself as the preferential pick due to being the first candidate to officially file for the presidential primary.
“A lot of people view me as a threat,” DeSantis told Tapper. “I think the left views me as a threat because they think I will beat Biden and deliver on all of this stuff, and of course people who have their allegiances on the Republican side have gone after me. But the reality is, this is a state-by-state process.”
Trump has maintained a double digit lead over DeSantis, even after multiple indictments and more expected to come throughout the primary cycle. Trump announced he is expecting a third indictment after receiving a “target letter” from special counsel Jack Smith’s investigators related to the Jan. 6th case. DeSantis maintained his stance that Smith’s efforts were an attempt to criminalize political disagreements.
“This country is going down the road of criminalizing political differences, and I think that is wrong,” DeSantis replied to Tapper when asked about Trump’s target letter. “I don’t think it serves us good to have a presidential election focused on what happened four years ago in January. So I want to focus on looking forward. I don’t want to look back. I hope he doesn’t get charged. I don’t think it’ll be good for the country.”
DeSantis continued to defend his electability even though his recent fundraising efforts have flagged concerns. The DeSantis campaign brought in $20 million for the second quarter, with $3 million being set aside for the general election. Only about 15 percent came from small donors. Over $1 million in the second quarter was spent on paying staffers — and over the weekend reports broke that multiple staffers had been let go to conserve money.
Guess that means if you go too anti-woke, then you go broke. That didn’t stop DeSantis from defending his military plans to ban transgender people from serving, and ridding the institution of diversity, equity, and inclusion. He also emphasized that he would be a “pro-life president” while refusing to comment if he would support a national six-week abortion ban. As a Floridian who watched his re-election in 2022, I can easily answer this for you — he will absolutely put a six week ban on abortion if given the opportunity.
It’s evident that DeSantis’ campaign must be struggling so much that he is attempting to win over CNN’s viewers. This was a man who had a Florida state senator proposing to ban the Democratic Party from being an entity in Florida just a few months ago. What we are witnessing is the harsh reality setting in — what worked in Florida in 2022 is not going to work on a national level in 2024.
Click Here to Order Boxing Interviews Of A Lifetime By “Bad” Brad Berkwitt