DeSantis Disappoints with Squandered Opportunity of Trump Meeting
Donald needs fundraising assistance badly. That means Ron had leverage that could have been used to try to get him to shape up.
Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis reportedly had a hatchet-burying meeting of sorts April 29, prompting rampant speculation over what if anything was decided. So far, all signs point to the event amounting to nothing.
Multiple outlets reported that the meat of the discussion was about getting DeSantis to agree to use his fundraising prowess to help the cash-strapped Trump campaign raise money. Both men summed things up with generic positivity instead of dishing on specifics, per Florida’s Voice:
“[We were] connecting about things,” DeSantis said. “He’s a dad [and] I’m a dad […] He’s concerned about how my wife was doing, obviously she had a cancer scare a couple years ago.”
“It was just a good meeting and a good conversation,” he said. “He understands the importance of this election.”
“He understands the damage that Biden is doing, and I think you would see 180 degree different policies if we’re able to win in November, which it’s important that we do,” the governor said.
After the meeting, Trump posted on his social media platform he is “very happy” to have gained DeSantis’ support on the 2024 campaign trail.
“We had a great meeting yesterday, arranged by mutual friend Steve Witkoff, at his beautiful Shell Bay Club in Hollywood, Florida,” he said Monday.
“The conversation mostly concerned how we would work closely together to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” the former president said. “Also discussed was the future of Florida, which is FANTASTIC! I greatly appreciate Ron’s support in taking back our Country from the Worst President in the History of the United States. November 5th is a BIG DAY!”
DeSantis endorsed Trump the same day he dropped out, but since then has mostly declined to mention him while ripping on Joe Biden, so there does appear to be a bit of a tonal shift following the meeting. Did DeSantis get anything from Trump in return for his help? (And no, the vice-presidential slot wouldn’t be in the cards, because even if Trump was willing to change his Florida residency to do it, there’s no way DeSantis would want such a hellish job he’s repeatedly ruled out.)
But a Donald in need could have been an opportunity to get some other good things out of him—like, say, a commitment to stop actively undermining the pro-life cause, or perhaps finally revoking the MAGA Seal of Approval from Trump’s most toxic surrogates.
Alas, it didn’t take long to see that nothing like that was promised, either. On May 5, Trump posted to Truth Social an especially incoherent restatement of his “whatever states wanna do about abortion is fine” pitch:
Gavin Newscum, the failed Governor of California, who is allowing his once beautiful State to go to Hell, refuses to recognize that Republicans are the Leaders on I.V.F. (Fertilization) - We are the ones taking care of Women, and now, after 53 years, where both Parties and all Legal Scholars and Experts wanted the always difficult and contentious subject of Abortion to go back to the States, we got it done, and now the States are setting their own Rules and Regulations - and it’s really working! We’ve given the Abortion Issue back to the Voters. It’s clean, it’s decisive, and we’ve taken Radicalization by Democrats, the killing of a Child in the 8th Month, 9th Month, or even after Birth, off the table. It now seems probable that our Country can start to pull together on the always difficult and controversial Issue of Abortion. IT’S UP TO THE STATES NOW, WHERE EVERYBODY WANTS IT, AND WHERE IT ALWAYS SHOULD HAVE BEEN!
Nor are there any signs yet of the MAGA influencer class shaping up; in fact, just this week, top Trump henchwoman Laura Loomer celebrated the erroneous (and since-corrected) Twitter suspension of prominent pro-DeSantis voice Max Nordau, in the process repeating a baseless, idiotic conspiracy theory that Nordau was really a sock-puppet account for DeSantis’s communications director Bryan Griffin (just don’t tell Kurt Schlichter!).
Is it possible that Trump privately assured DeSantis of something positive we just wouldn’t see yet, like a commitment to hire and listen to certain people who would be a step up? Theoretically, I suppose. But there’s no evidence anything like that happened either, and abundant evidence from the rest of Trump’s political life that no such promise would be taken seriously even if made.
Look, it was never realistic to put the responsibility for stopping MAGA’s takeover on DeSantis’s shoulders after he ran against Trump and lost. Nobody should hold it against him that he’s backing the Republican nominee; he has to honor the pledge he took in the primary, and as bitterly as it tastes, at least some degree of team spirit is probably necessary for Ron’s 2028 hopes. Plus, there’s still obviously no contest between DeSantis and any other potential future White House candidate.
That said, it’s hard not to be disappointed that DeSantis’s decision to be so vocal about supporting Trump doesn’t appear to have been contingent on extracting any sort of concessions from the contemptible lout for the good of the party or the movement. Just because he has to support Trump in the general election doesn’t mean he had to do it right away, nor did that pledge specify anything about how. Technically, doing as little as privately casting a vote for Trump in November would satisfy it.
Further, it wouldn’t have made any meaningful difference, either to beating Biden or to DeSantis’s 2028 standing, if he started stumping for Trump in May or a couple months later. Recall that in 2016, Ted Cruz went to the nominating convention in July and told the crowd only to “vote your conscience.” He didn’t endorse Trump in that general until late September (nowadays, Cruz is of course a pathetic MAGA submissive, but the point stands).
Granted, Trump being Trump, there’s no guarantee anything he might’ve agreed to would last. But between the fact that conservative pressure did work on him in the early years and his desperate need for money, it would have been worth at least trying. Ron DeSantis recognizes and pursues opportunities to thwart and weaken the Left like nobody else in America, but just missed a golden opportunity to do the same within our own party.