On a much-touted Hannity interview Monday night, Donald Trump said Ron DeSantis begged for help to win Florida’s gubernatorial race “with tears in his eyes” and that if it weren’t for him, DeSantis would be working in a “pizza parlor.”
The comment came when Fox’s Sean Hannity asked, “The question I get asked the most about you is, ‘Ron DeSantis – what happened? I thought they were friends.’”
Trump responded by insinuating DeSantis wasn’t “loyal” after receiving his endorsement in the 2018 Florida governor’s race.
Trump said DeSantis, who was a congressman at the time, was “so behind” in the primary race against his opponent who “was already buying furniture for the governor’s office.”
“I said, ‘Let’s give it a shot, Ron, ok?’ And he was desperate,” Trump told Hannity. “I gave him a nice endorsement. I said, ‘You write out what you’d like and let me see it. He wrote it out and I thought it was terrible so I changed it, made it great. I gave him a great endorsement. From the moment I pressed that button he blew that guy away. The race was over. They never even got to spend their money.
“I got him the nomination,” Trump continued. “By the way, he could never have gotten the nomination. He would be working either in a pizza parlor place or a law office right now, and he wouldn’t be very happy.”
DeSantis has degrees from Yale University and Harvard Law School.
Trump went on to say that DeSantis failed the loyalty test when the governor was asked if he was going to run for president in 2024 and declined to answer.
“When you help somebody, really help them, and then he announces that eventually he’s going to run against you. but he’s getting crushed now in the polls,” he said.
For the record, DeSantis has not announced whether or not he’ll run, although he’s considered to be Trump’s closest competitor for the presidential nomination in 2024. Trump has been attacking the Florida governor on Truth Social with his most recent insult being to refer to his opponent as “Ron Dukakis,” a reference to failed 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis.
Trump also smeared DeSantis this week as a “groomer” of underage children, or even possibly gay.
DeSantis has mostly laughed off the comments and names like “Ron DeSanctimonious” and “Meatball Ron.”
“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star or to secure silence over some time of the alleged affair. I just, I can’t speak to that,” DeSantis told reporters on Monday when asked about Trump’s current legal woes.
