DeSantis Makes His Anti-Trump Case

The Florida governor has done a spate of interviews over the last couple of days and begun to make his anti-Trump case. It’s not a Never Trump argument, which would be a huge mistake given what DeSantis is trying to do, but an attack on Trump from the right and on practical grounds of electability and ability to govern. He’s obviously got an uphill climb, but if he’s going to have any hope of toppling Trump, I believe something like this is the right posture.

Here he is making the case that his ceiling is higher in a general election:

Here he is pushing back against Trump’s hit against him on Covid:

Here he is arguing that Trump is attacking him from the left and isn’t the same as he was in 2015–2016:

And this interview with Ben Shapiro is worth watching in full:

With Shapiro, DeSantis hits Trump from the right on a number of things and then discusses the 2020 election. He doesn’t address whether the election was stolen but operates from the assumption it was “rigged,” while blaming Trump’s inability to control his own government and egregiously poor tactics for the outcome. It’s an answer perfectly crafted not to offend someone who has doubts about the 2020 election at the same time making the point that it would be foolish to go down that road again with Trump.

Now, all these answers are delivered in a speech or with a sympathetic interviewer. Whether DeSantis would be as effective making his points and maintaining the balance he’s trying to strike — especially on the 2020 election — in a less friendly, more chaotic environment, most importantly a debate stage, remains to be seen.

But he clearly has a plan here and is making the most vigorous anti-Trump case from someone who hopes to have a future in the Republican Party that we’ve heard since 2016.