After months of speculation from across the political spectrum, and months of attacks from pro-Trump media, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has entered the 2024 presidential race. DeSantis, who filed paperwork to run today, is expected to formally kick off his run in a Twitter Spaces conversation with Twitter owner Elon Musk, who formerly endorsed DeSantis in November but now claims to be neutral. 

Media allies of former President Donald Trump have already cast DeSantis as a “cold fish” and a spoiler candidate being used against the real thing by establishment Republicans. DeSantis’ pending Twitter announcement immediately inflamed tensions between supporters of the two men, as some claim that God is “anointing” Trump to be president and DeSantis is on a “suicide run,” while others say that DeSantis is heralding “the new world we’re all trying to get to.” 

“This sounds totally ill-conceived,” said Newsmax host Greg Kelly of DeSantis’ decision to announce on Twitter Spaces. “It seems really, really silly.” One of Kelly’s guests, commentator Dick Morris, took aim at the entire campaign, accusing the governor of “basically becoming the tool of the Never Trumpers. Right now he has no real chance to win, but what he can do is take positions so far to the right that Trump has to move to the right, and then he can’t move back to the center to win the general election,” because the GOP establishment is “using DeSantis as a foil” to defeat Trump.

On The Balance, former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake riffed on one of DeSantis’ signature issues, his war against Disney over its opposition to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. Complaining that Disney’s “indoctrination is continuing” despite DeSantis’ efforts, Lake asked, “If you can’t beat Donald Duck, how are you going to beat Donald Trump? I think that’s the question we have to ask when it comes to Gov. DeSantis.”

“I know he can’t beat Joe Biden,” Lake later predicted, claiming that “the MAGA movement, the America First movement, is so turned off by what they’ve seen from him, and the people who are surrounding DeSantis, that I’m not sure that they would vote for him in a general. I hate to say that, but I’m concerned about us beating Biden.”

Similarly, right-wing radio host Wayne Allyn Root warned on The Gateway Pundit that DeSantis “won’t beat Trump. He has no chance. Zero. It’s a suicide run. By running against Trump now, he will have to go negative about Trump, and thereby turn off enough Trump supporters to never be the 2028 nominee.” Claiming that he is “not anti-DeSantis,” he nonetheless said that “DeSantis needs to stand down.”

Complimenting DeSantis remains popular among some of Trump’s most vocal supporters, though it doesn’t move their support. “DeSantis is terrific. He's fantastic,” said right-wing pastor Eric Metaxas. “But I believe -- I could be wrong. But I believe that the Lord would want Trump to be president in this next term. I believe that. I believe that it has something to do with anointing,” going on to praise Trump as “a wartime consigliere” who uniquely “connects with the common man.”

Meanwhile, some friendlier voices are attempting to lend him support against the Trump media machine. On Fox, podcaster Dave Rubin complimented DeSantis’ “extremely cool” announcement plans, predicting that his sit-down with Musk will “blaze us to the new world we’re all trying to get to, when these people come together who are different politically but see a future in America that’s all about freedom and liberty.”



“The biggest problem for Donald Trump might not be Ron DeSantis,” theorized Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade; “it might be the court cases.” Running through what fellow co-host Steve Doocy called Trump’s “significant legal peril” in the coming years, Kilmeade simply said, “if you are running against the former president” who also “has got to be in court” during the primary, then “you really have a pretty strong stump speech.”

Although he hosted Kari Lake for multiple direct attacks on DeSantis, Newsmax’s Eric Bolling had some kind words for him earlier in his program. Talking to his former Fox colleague Megyn Kelly, Bolling revealed that DeSantis had called him earlier to discuss the announcement. 

However, after being asked for her thoughts, Kelly conceded that she was “excited about his launch,” but “that was a pander,” and told Bolling that “you shouldn’t be flattered that he reached out to you. Because trust me, you’re going to be around a lot longer than he is.”