‘Not going to be bullied’: Why DeSantis went after Trump, then retreated

As Donald Trump faced the looming threat of an indictment in New York last month, scores of Republicans offered a full-throated defense of the former president. But not Ron DeSantis, who resented that Trump expected fealty while attacking him relentlessly and wanted to show he wouldn’t be cowed into falling in line, according to two people familiar with the Florida governor’s thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly.

Asked about the case at a news conference on March 20, two days after a Trump adviser criticized his “radio silence,” DeSantis accused the prosecutor of “pursuing a political agenda” against Trump, echoing many others in the party. But he also noted the allegations of “porn star hush money” at the center of the case, seeking to put a spotlight on Trump’s personal conduct and show he was “not going to be bullied” by the ex-president, one of the people said.

The backlash from Trump and his allies was swift, and when an indictment came in late March, DeSantis took a route suggested early on by Dustin Carmack, a former congressional aide expected to join his presidential campaign, according to another person with knowledge of the conversations, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to more openly describe private talks. DeSantis declared Florida would “not assist in an extradition request,” even as Trump’s team had already indicated that the former president would surrender.

Representatives for DeSantis did not respond to a request for comment. Carmack could not be reached for comment.

The episode underscored the stark challenges DeSantis faces in confronting Trump, as the governor gears up to enter the presidential race. The governor’s recent struggles to find his footing on the national stage, where he is a relative novice, stands in contrast to the dominance he has established in Florida, confidently battling the political left and other foes and winning reelection by nearly 20 points in the fall.

His response to Trump’s indictment reflects the trial and error in his approach as well as his reluctance to declare open warfare against the top-polling Republican candidate. Rather than open a new phase of combativeness with Trump, DeSantis is lying low again, at least for the moment.

The person who said DeSantis wasn’t going to be “bullied” expects the governor to push back on Trump more sharply if he runs for president. But this person also expects he will take “the high road” and engage with Trump on policy rather than trade insults and employ name-calling — for instance, by rebutting the former president’s criticisms of how DeSantis handled the pandemic and taking aim at Trump’s own record on the issue, including his use of Anthony S. Fauci as a White House coronavirus adviser.

Past campaigns have shown the perils of hoping that Trump simply implodes, some Republicans said, but assailing Trump head-on also carries big risks, especially for a 2024 hopeful such as DeSantis, who has supporters who overlap with Trump’s.

“This is when you’d expect candidates to try different things out,” said Alex Conant, who worked on Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign. He added that DeSantis recently “tried something out” on the issue of Ukraine as well — calling Russia’s invasion a “territorial dispute” unimportant to U.S. interests. After drawing vocal GOP criticism, DeSantis took a harder line against Russia and said his words had been “mischaracterized.”

GOP voters “really dislike it when other Republicans attack Trump,” Conant said, suggesting that only President Biden — a Democrat — had found a good way to counter him.

Trump has continued to hammer DeSantis in recent weeks — using disparaging nicknames to describe his rival, pointing to polls showing the governor lagging behind him, and suggesting that DeSantis would be working in a law office, a cigar store or a pizza parlor if Trump had not endorsed him and helped boost his candidacy for governor in 2018.

In private, DeSantis has pushed back to allies on Trump’s assertion that he “made” DeSantis and has described some of Trump’s behavior as erratic, according to a person who has spoken to him directly. The governor has been taken aback at how soon Trump attacked him, some people with knowledge of the situation said — while he and his team expected that such criticism would eventually come, it arrived earlier than they thought.

Aides and allies of the governor have also made their own frustration with Trump clear. “Mention Trump and people’s eyes roll back into their heads,” said a DeSantis donor.

For now, DeSantis is back to publicly ignoring Trump’s attacks — his longtime strategy before his “hush money” comments at the news conference last month and his sharpened contrasts with Trump in an interview around the same time with conservative commentator Piers Morgan. On Tuesday, as the former president was arraigned in New York, the governor appeared at a closed-press pet adoption event with puppies.

But a super PAC created to back a DeSantis bid is already taking aim at Trump, suggesting he would be a weaker general-election nominee. The former president faces other criminal investigations probing his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and his handling of classified documents after leaving office. Trump has also faced blame for some of the losses in key midterm races in which he elevated the GOP nominee.

“Ron DeSantis can win the general election — that’s something that I don’t believe Donald Trump can do,” says a man featured in a video recently released by Never Back Down, the political committee backing DeSantis for 2024 that is expected to have his campaign’s blessing.

In Pennsylvania last weekend, DeSantis emphasized that “there is no substitute for victory — the winners get to make policy. The losers go home.”

In Arizona — a crucial swing state where Trump-endorsed candidates lost last fall — GOP political consultant Constantin Querard has been traveling the state gathering signatures for a letter urging DeSantis to seek the presidency. With more than half of the Republicans in the state legislature among his firm’s clients, Querard believes DeSantis will help down-ballot candidates win in 2024.

“We want the conservative who can win at the top of the ticket,” Querard said.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said in a statement that the former president “is dominating in poll after poll — both nationally and statewide — crushing the primary and general fields.”

Cheung added: “We get stronger every day while others are limping around searching for relevance and attention.”

DeSantis allies are acutely aware of Trump’s still-strong influence and appeal in the Republican Party. A senior member of Never Back Down has said the group will be heavily involved in building crowds for DeSantis, in part because of Trump’s fixation on crowd size and the expectation that a front-runner candidate draws big audiences, according to a person familiar with the comments.

“If you’re DeSantis, you have to desperately avoid the small room with Jeb Bush asking attendees to please clap,” the person said, referencing a viral moment from Bush’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2016.

A spokeswoman for Never Back Down did not respond to requests for comment.

Speaking to reporters on the way home from a Texas rally last month, Trump belittled the size of DeSantis’s book tour crowds — incorrectly. He claimed DeSantis’s biggest crowd in Iowa was 179 people; in fact, it was more than a thousand.

DeSantis emerged triumphant from the 2022 midterms, winning reelection decisively while some other Republicans in marquee races, who were tied to Trump and his movement, fell short. But Trump’s lead over DeSantis in national polling for 2024 has grown in recent months, and many Republicans believe GOP outrage over his indictment has boosted his position.

“The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it,” Trump said in a speech last week after his arraignment. He faces 34 counts of falsifying business records, all related to allegations that he worked to suppress his affair with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors say he hid payments to keep Daniels quiet during the 2016 presidential election.

Trump has pleaded not guilty and has used the case as a rallying cry in his campaign.

The former president has picked up notable Republican endorsements amid the indictment: Byron Donalds, a Florida congressman who has been a DeSantis ally, announced on Thursday that he is backing Trump for 2024.

“There is only one leader at this time in our nation’s history who can seize the moment and deliver what we need — to get us back on track, provide strength and resolve, and Make America Great Again,” Donalds said in a statement, which noted that Reps. Matt Gaetz and Anna Paulina Luna, also of Florida, have also pledged their support.

DeSantis is not expected to formally enter the race until after the Florida legislative session ends in May, and political veterans caution against drawing conclusions from early polling. Many declared and potential candidates are also hoping that strong performances in early nominating states such as Iowa and New Hampshire — where in-person campaigning is key — will set them on the path to victory.

The Florida governor has already made his way through Iowa and will head to New Hampshire soon.