Former Arkansas GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee slammed Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) Wednesday afternoon, claiming the Florida governor "better be prepared" to defend his decision to run for reelection since he wants to be president.
"One of the challenges that he's going to have to answer is a very obvious question: If you want to be president, how come you ran for governor just last year?" Huckabee told Newsmax. "You asked for a four-year job, and then you barely had gotten into it before you were looking for another four-year job."
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Huckabee warned that the public would want to know whether he was unhappy as governor since he did not even wait a full year after winning reelection to run for something else.
DeSantis has consistently said that he would make a final decision on whether he would seek higher office after the end of the Florida legislative session, which ended earlier this month. He declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination during a Twitter Spaces event with Twitter owner Elon Musk.
With 18 months before the primaries, DeSantis is the only Republican who truly stands a chance against former President Donald Trump, according to polling.
Huckabee, who most recently ran to be the Republican nominee for president in 2016, said DeSantis would also need to do well in the early states if he had any hope of winning the nomination.
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"Running for president is really not running in 50 states," Huckabee said. "It's like running for governor in about five or six states to begin with: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, [and] Florida. And, frankly, if you don't win those early states, I don't care how well you're doing in California, or Texas, or Missouri; you're not going to be president. You have to win the early primaries."
News of DeSantis's announcement comes on the heels of Sen. Tim Scott's (R-SC) entrance into the 2024 race on Monday. Scott is expected to travel to New Hampshire on Thursday.