Over the weekend Governor DeSantis said in Iowa that the Republican Party “must reject the culture of losing that has infected our party in recent years. The time for excuses is over.”
Trump took issue with it and responded to it yesterday in his interview with The Messenger, claiming he did very well in the midterm and even called DeSantis a ‘loser’:
The Messenger: DeSantis said this yesterday in Iowa: “We must reject the culture of losing that has affected our party in recent years. The time for excuses is over. If we make the 2024 election, a referendum on Joe Biden, his failures, and if we provide a positive alternative for the future of this country, Republicans will win across the board. If we do not do that, if we get distracted, if we focus the election on the past, than I think that Democrats are going to defeat us again.” What do you think of him trying to define you as being too caught up in the past?
Trump: “First of all, I’m not at all caught up in the past. And second of all, I’m doing much better against Biden than he is in the polls, and I’m doing much better against him. I mean, I’m beating [DeSantis] by 40 points in some polls, so he can talk about what he wants. And third of all, I did very well in the midterms. [My endorsed candidates won] 233 out of 253 races, which nobody wants to report. … Ron’s not a winner because Ron without me wouldn’t have won. If I would have left it alone, he would have lost by 30 points or more.”
In turn, Governor DeSantis was asked about Trump’s response on Fox News radio with Guy Benson today and he says he doesn’t know what Trump is talking about. He says if Trump had done well, we’d have won the Senate by four seats and the House by more than just by the skin of our teeth:
BENSON: Governor, you were just in Iowa over the weekend, and people paying close attention to that. I think we know why. If you want to make some news there here, you’re more than welcome to do that. You did say — and this is a sound bite getting quite a lot of attention — that it’s time for the Republican Party to reject the culture of losing. The time for excuses is over.
Donald Trump, the former president, has responded to this already. I guess he viewed those comments as a barb at him. He said, among other things: “I’m not caught up in the past. I did very well in the midterms.” Quote: “Ron’s not a winner,” talking about you, “because Ron, without me, wouldn’t have won.” Were you talking about him with those comments? And what’s your reaction to that response that I just summarized for you?
DESANTIS: Well, we have had three election cycles in a row where we have had poor results. I mean, that’s just the fact, 2018, lose the House, 2020, presidency and the Senate. And then, 2022, the circumstances were probably never better for our party in the last 10, 15 years, to have a floundering president in Joe Biden, approval rating at 40 percent. And what did we do? Not only did we not gain Senate seats. We lost a Senate seat, yes, picked up the House, but on the skin of our teeth, and really just because of Florida and New York. And so it was a historic underperformance across the board. So I’m not sure what he’s saying, that his candidates did well in the midterms. If that were the case, we would have 54 Senate seats. We would have swept all the governorships. All that stuff was in play for us as a party, and we weren’t able to get it done.
Here in Florida, we did have a red wave. In fact, we had a red tsunami. And I think it’s because we have governed in a way that not only has produced tangible results for people, but has been willing to add to our coalition. Like, yes, I want all the Republicans, but you know that’s not enough to win nationwide. So we won independents by 18 percent. We won over 60 percent of Latinos. We won women voters by 9 percent. We won, of course, in rural areas, and I set a record for a Republican. I used to think, like, Philadelphia, you would see, like, 90 percent go Democrat in some area. I was like, that’s got to be fraud, right? Well, no, I was winning 90 percent in some of these rural areas, 92, 90 percent, 88 percent. We swept the suburbs, and we won urban areas like Miami-Dade County, and not only took a county that voted Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 30 points. We won it by double digits.
And so I think we have shown a pathway forward to be able to win, get the coalition necessary to win, but then, most important, because winning just gives you the ticket to the dance. Then what are you going to do with it? And I think what we have shown in Florida is, we understand how to actually take our shared principles and vision as conservatives and make them political reality. And that is just as important, to follow through with an election victory, as winning the election itself.
You can listen to the full interview with Governor DeSantis, cued up below at 01:15:47: