On the surface, former President Donald Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom would seem to be political foes, but they appear to share the same goal: taking down Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
In recent weeks, both Trump and Newsom have launched relentless attacks against DeSantis, using similar arguments and talking points not only to target the Florida governor’s record but also seemingly to push him out of the 2024 presidential race before he ever enters it.
Meanwhile, Trump and Newsom have refrained from targeting each other harshly, even when given the opportunity to do so, creating a curious political situation in which the nation’s most prominent Republican and one of its most prominent Democrats are seemingly allied in directing their political ire toward DeSantis.
Newsom, a Democrat, has been regularly attacking DeSantis for the several months, calling the Florida Republican a “bully,” airing a TV ad slamming his governorship, and even challenging him to a debate.
Former President Donald Trump, center, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, right, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, left (Getty Images)
Trump, however, only starting attacking DeSantis over the last couple of months as he wages his 2024 Republican presidential campaign. DeSantis, who hasn’t announced a White House bid, is nonetheless widely considered Trump’s chief rival in the GOP primary.
“Ron DeSantis is a young man who is not doing well against me in the polls, to put it mildly,” Trump wrote this week on Truth Social. “I believe that if he decides to run for president, which will only hurt and somewhat divide the Republican Party, he will lose the cherished and massive MAGA vote, and never be able to successfully run for office again.”
In a press release sent out hours later, Trump’s campaign questioned whether DeSantis would support a change to Florida law that requires state lawmakers to resign if they’re running for federal office. The campaign also referenced how, in 2018, DeSantis resigned from Congress while running for governor, suggesting it would be hypocritical to campaign for president now while continuing to serve as governor.
“Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to campaign full-time for president, during the Florida legislative session, while collecting a salary and having the taxpayers pick up the costs for his travel and security. It’s a massive flip-flop from his position in 2018,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “To make matters worse, DeSantis’ upcoming taxpayer-funded campaign travel appears to put him at odds with Florida’s existing ‘Resign to Run’ law.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, left, and former President Donald Trump (Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images // Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Last month, Trump also lambasted DeSantis as an “average” and “big lockdown” governor. Trump noted that as president he gave governors the “freedom” to respond to COVID as they saw fit, and he argued that other Republican governors handled the pandemic more effectively than DeSantis did.
Republicans and conservatives have generally praised Florida for reopening earlier than most states amid the COVID lockdowns of 2020. Still, the former president argued that Florida under DeSantis fared worse than New York with a high COVID death rate and has performed poorly in crime and education rankings.
Newsom has followed suit in recent weeks, using strikingly similar attack lines as Trump against DeSantis.
Florida “had fifty-eight percent higher per capita death rates under COVID. That’s freedom? Fifty-eight percent higher per capita death rates?” Newsom said in a podcast interview. “Their education system? [California] outperformed during COVID. . . . There’s a lot of myth out there, a lot of BS.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, left, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (Getty)
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Newsom more broadly slammed DeSantis’ broader leadership in an MSNBC interview that aired Sunday, and argued he’d be defeated easily in the 2024 presidential race.
“He’s going to get rolled by Trump. Trump is just going to roll him. Thumped,” Newsom said of DeSantis. “I, honestly, if I were offering political advice, I would tell him to pack it up and wait a few years and actually do some of the hard work, which actually includes governing, not just identity and culture war.”
Newsom has also been frequently criticizing DeSantis on social media, targeting the Florida governor over a host of issues from abortion to free speech.
Meanwhile, Newsom has refrained from attacking Trump, even when given the opportunity. During the same MSNBC interview that aired Sunday, for example, Newsom was asked whether he would be able to continue working with Trump as president if he were to beat Joe Biden in a re-election contest. Newsom responded that Biden would win, but he nonetheless entertained the notion of a Trump victory. Instead of attacking Trump, California’s governor referenced his ability to work with people with whom he disagrees.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
“I don’t like talking past people or down to people because they disagree with me. I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time with the people who tried to recall me,” said Newsom. “We all want to be respected, protected, connected. We all want to love. We all need to be loved. We have so many foundational values. . . . There’s some universal things about being human that I also think are important, so I say this in the context of the frame around Trump or all these folks.”
Two days later, Trump told Fox News host Tucker Carlson in an interview that he hadn’t “hit” Newsom because the California governor had had nice things to say about him.
“He was always very nice to me, said the greatest things,” Trump said of Newsom. “He would say things like, ‘He’s doing a great job.'”
“About you?” asked Carlson.
“About me, that’s why I could never hit him, because he was so nice to me, just laying in wait right?” Trump said. “But he was very nice to me, relatively speaking.”
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Hilton Anatole on August 6, 2022, in Dallas, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
During the height of COVID in 2020, Newsom called his relationship with then-President Trump “very effective.”
Trump’s comments triggered criticism from some Republicans and conservatives. However, Trump supporters were quick to note that the former president also criticized Newsom in his response before focusing on the governor’s positive comments.
“You have a very ambitious guy in California, but he’s done a terrible job with the state,” said Trump. “I used to get along great with him when I was president. Got along really good . . . Gavin.”
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When reached for comment, Trump’s campaign pointed to specific examples of the former president “eviscerating” Newsom. One was a YouTube video of Trump slamming Newsom’s immigration policies at a rally in Tennessee, suggesting to the crowd that the governor wants the country to look like Venezuela. The campaign also sent screenshots of multiple social media posts of Trump blasting Newsom for doing a “terrible” job on forest management and addressing California’s homeless population.
Fox News Digital has also reached out to Newsom and DeSantis for comment but did not receive immediate responses.
