Donald Trump is reportedly itching to declare his intention to run for the White House in 2024 and amid all the talk over just when he will do that one thing is certain, the former president is in a fighting mood.
It’s hard to argue that there has been a more persecuted politician in American history than Trump and early indications suggest a take-no-prisoners approach if he does run, as Fox News found out Thursday.
Trump released a lengthy statement after the midterm elections that saw Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis decimate his Democratic opponent by a historic proportion of nearly 20 percent, a win so convincing that a consensus was building that DeSantis is now the future of the Republican Party. Reminding the world that he played a key role in elevating DeSantis to his current role, Trump called him an “average” governor while repeating a nickname first mentioned at a rally last week, “Gov. Ron DeSanctimonious.”
Offering up a brushback to a potential rival is part of politics, particularly for Donald Trump, but it was the singling out of Fox News that stood out, with the nation’s 45th president of the United States serving notice that he’s still around.
The statement from Trump read: “NewsCorp, which is Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and the no longer great New York Post (bring back Col!), is all in for Governor Ron DeSanctimonious, an average REPUBLICAN Governor with great Public Relations, who didn’t have to close up his State, but did, unlike other Republican Governors, whose overall numbers for a Republican, were just average—middle of the pack—including COVID, and who has the advantage of SUNSHINE, where people from badly run States up North would go no matter who the Governor was, just like I did!”
Trump then claimed that DeSantis came to him “in desperate shape in 2017,” asking for his backing over GOP primary opponent Adam Putnam, seen as a rising star in his own right at the time, suggesting that DeSantis “was politically dead” at the time.
“When I Endorsed him, it was as though, to use a bad term, a nuclear weapon went off,” the former president said, adding that he “got Ron by the ‘Star’ of the Democrat Party, Andrew Gillum (who was later revealed to be a ‘Crack Head’), by having two massive Rallies with tens of thousands of people at each one.”
“I also fixed his campaign, which had completely fallen apart,” he continued, and further suggested that he helped prevent the election from being stolen from DeSantis, whom Trump said is “now playing games” by not getting behind him when asked about 2024.
Turning his attention back to Fox News, Trump concluded the network is now “really gone.”
“This is just like 2015 and 2016, a Media Assault (Collusion!), when Fox News fought me to the end until I won, and then they couldn’t have been nicer or more supportive,” he said. “The Wall Street Journal loved Low Energy Jeb Bush, and a succession of other people as they rapidly disappeared from sight, finally falling in line with me after I easily knocked them out, one by one. We’re in exactly the same position now. They will keep coming after us, MAGA, but ultimately, we will win. Put America First and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
“Despite having picked so many winners, I have to put up with the Fake News. For me, Fox News was always gone, even in 2015-16 when I began my ‘journey,’ but now they’re really gone,” Trump said. “Such an opportunity for another media outlet to make an absolute fortune, and do good for America. Let’s see what happens?”
While some in the media are suggesting — or in some cases hoping — that Trump and DeSantis are on an inevitable collision course, Trump is staking out his ground early and appears to have a real concern about getting equal airtime on Fox News, perhaps the ONLY major network that will offer a “fair and balanced” platform for GOP candidates in 2024.
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