House Speaker Kevin McCarthy addressed former President Donald Trump’s verbal attacks against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over the past few weeks as more speculate the GOP governor will hop in the 2024 presidential race.
The California Republican’s remarks came as Trump repeatedly assailed DeSantis at a rally in Waco, Texas, on Saturday.
McCarthy was asked about the attacks during an appearance on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime” Monday even after being shown a clip of the former president making his remarks.
“Now, you’re the Speaker of the House,” Watters said. “When you hear the former president – he’s leading in the Republican primary – just go after the Florida governor like that, we think he’s getting in soon. How does that make you feel?”
“Look, the thing I look at is there is enough problems that the Democrats have brought us,” McCarthy responded. “We have inflation. We have a border that’s wide open. We pay more for gasoline energy. We’ve got a world moving with war happening.”
“I don’t think Republicans should go after one another,” he continued. “We need to bring this nation back. Bring Republicans in, independents, and Democrats too because we cannot handle four more years of Joe Biden. We can’t afford it.”
Mediaite highlighted a lengthy clip of Trump’s rally, where the former president’s attacks appeared to have fallen flat with the audience. “Compared to how Trump’s crowd normally reacts to his bits, the reaction to his mocking DeSantis was practically dead air,” the report noted.
During the rally, Trump directed several attacks at DeSantis, including criticism of his pandemic response, accusing him of being “not good” on crime, and mocking him with nicknames. According to an analysis by Fox News, Trump has attacked DeSantis four times more frequently than he has attacked President Joe Biden.
“When a man comes to me with tears in his eyes, he’s had almost nothing in the polls,” Trump claimed in reference to DeSantis’ 2018 gubernatorial run, which admittedly resulted in a narrow victory (DeSantis beat Democrat Charlie Crist by nearly 20 points in November). “He’s at almost nothing, he’s got no cash.”
“And I said, I can’t give you an endorsement. There’s no way you can when you’re dead,” Trump claimed. “I said, let’s give it a shot, Ron. I endorsed him. He became like a rocket ship. Within one day the race was over.”
