What Went Wrong For The DeSantis Campaign?
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You're listening to Fox News Radio. I'm Ben Domenech. During the course of the 2024 primary season, I've had the honor of hosting a show along with

Two friends of mine, John and Dan, who are experts in the field of politics for us at The Spectator. And now I'm going to be sharing just a special episode of this with you all today because we wanted to have a response to the surprise decision by Ron DeSantis, the once vaunted potential nominee of the Republican Party this time around, the one guy who could take on Donald Trump.

deciding to suspend his campaign and endorse the former president who he has been kneeling for the past several months. John, Dan, I'm surprised by this decision. If only because of the timing, I assumed that Ron DeSantis would drop out

I just kind of thought that he would stay in until South Carolina for a lot of different reasons. You know, number one being that like just having the capability of sort of being on a certain level and and

maintaining your argument to a certain degree is important. I think, I think it served for instance, you know, Ted Cruz actually pretty well to stay in as long as he did within the 2016 battle to, to effectively establish himself as the person who came in second. And by getting out before Haley and before Haley put potentially lost her home state, uh,

DeSantis basically has said that I'm third, you know, and sort of in people's minds, he will be remembered as such as the guy who spent hundreds of millions of dollars and came out of Iowa not having won a single county. So, John, first to you, what are your thoughts on the decision by the Florida governor? I think it was the right call, but executed the wrong way, which is

pretty much the story of this entire campaign. I think dropping out, there was no path for him, right? He had pushed all his chips into the table on Iowa, declared as much. There was talk about his ground game there was going to be, you know, as we hear with candidates every cycle, was going to be this amazing difference maker.

And it was kind of too close to call for a while for most of caucus night between DeSantis, who everyone said was a perfect fit for the Iowa electorate, and Nikki Haley, who was anything but. And

Here we are now where you look at the calendar coming up for him, New Hampshire. I think he's what he's pulling in single digits at this point up there, South Carolina, where there was no path for him. You know, the Nevada caucuses are in there somewhere. I think that in some ways, I mean, this is kind of saving a Rubio situation of potentially losing your home state somewhere down the line. But man, if you, if you'd be able to give me Vegas odds,

this time last year and said that Baker Mayfield would be in the game longer than Ron DeSantis, I would have laughed. But here we are. The Baker, you know, good effort, right? I mean, the Lions... Really good effort. Really, I mean, solid gamer, baller effort right there at the end. Yeah. But I think the thing that strikes me the most just isn't that DeSantis dropped out, it's that he immediately endorses Trump. And...

ah it's it doesn't feel good man i mean you look at you look at cruise who was who was still you know throwing shade through the convention in 2016 um i was there in fact uh uh at a i was watching the cruise speech i had been covering uh the events at the convention from outside the convention hall and i was watching the cruise speech and

And a certain former very strongly Trump boosting news anchor was watching it at the same bar as I was. And he actually stood up and broke his pen like he had the pen to sign the bar bill and broke his pen in his hands when Cruz said, vote your conscience. So he was still getting under people's skin even then.

but you know and again i look i guess you know trump hasn't said that ron santa's dad is like jfp's murder or that his wife was ugly or any of those kind of things he did say that she was faking her cancer or or at least endorsed that proposition his uh yes his his uh supportive many people are saying many many people are saying yeah

So what I would say is, you know, what's interesting, politics in the era of Trump forces everyone to be a Straussian, whether they like it or not. There's like esoteric meanings behind everything. There's what the guy says. There's what he's positioning by what he says. There's what he really believes. And if ever something fit that description to me, at least on first read day one, it's this decision because it's compatible both with a kind of

Doing Trump a favor, obsequiously bowing out, hoping to preserve, I don't know, attorney general, whatever, you know, lick your wounds on the way out, protect some of that MAGA-friendly base that you enjoy in Florida. But it's also consistent with really doing

essentially making it a two, making, doing what Haley urged after Iowa, which is, you know, she came out saying this is a two person race. That's clear, which was kind of ballsy for her to say, obviously when she finished in third, but you know, the, the proposition there was I'm, you know, you see where this is going. The trajectory of this is that I am the most credible challenger to Trump. So John, of course. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, you know, for Fox news listeners, um,

There's not, you know, I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not an always Trump conservative, I think to say the least, but you know, yeah. Okay. He endorses, you know, Trump the second he drops out, but in fact, he's going to boost in, you know, at least, at least in terms of raw numbers, he's going to boost the number of votes that, that Haley gets. I mean, we see. That's kind of the weird thing about this. It's like, again, again, I kind of feel like,

you know if he had if he had even done this i mean the timing is just weird because it's like it doesn't actually if you if you dropped out let's say that um haley over performs in new hampshire and then and then she performs decently in south carolina um if you dropped out right after south carolina going into michigan

it would potentially hurt Haley because you could say basically, you know, we need to unite around Donald Trump. We're going into Michigan. And, you know, I feel like I need a call on, you know, the people who are going to vote for me there to vote for him instead. Like that would be a very rational decision a month from now, but doing it right now, it's just kind of weird. And I,

It reads as weird, at least to me. And a lot of his second place votes do go to Trump. We know that from the lion's share. But to me, this is a middle finger to Haley. This is a guy, you know, and maybe this is sort of criminology and reading too much into it.

But what was it? Something like two thirds or 75% of his votes go to Trump. So yeah, sure. Somewhere around there. Yeah. Haley on the margin, we'll get more votes than she would have otherwise, but you know what? So we'll Trump by a factor of two in New Hampshire, San Jose and single digits. It doesn't really matter. Right. Her, her, her votes were going to come from, um,

you know chris christie or what have you but already you know governor kristen newton very popular republican governor up there was managing expectations you know as recently as a few days ago saying hey all we ever hoped for was second place right and i think going to south carolina i think it's full schooled for nikki haley

Donald Trump has, I mean, you go back to the 2016 cycle, I think the one guy that basically held serve against Trump, and I can't remember what happened in Texas, but you know, against the odds was John Kasich in Ohio, Marco lost in Florida and, you know, Trump just otherwise ran the table. You know, I don't see in a world in which Tim Scott, and again, I don't think endorsements are the be all and end all. I actually, I don't think they're super important generally. Um,

I think governors a little bit more because there's just more organization there at their command to put behind somebody. But, you know, when Tim Scott drops out and immediately endorses Trump, the fact that none of these people hesitated there, Donald Trump is the king of the Republican party. And I think what we've seen in the last, you know, week is,

If you didn't believe it before, believe it now. Yeah, that's the difference between 2016 and this, is that the Cruz thing, to me, was largely a function of the absolute lingering disbelief in the armature of the conservative movement that had reigned for 50 years. And just to give you an example of that,

Think about who was involved in terms of the final days leading up to that convention showdown. It was Mike Lee. It was Ken Cuccinelli, who was the titular head of the Never Back Down Super PAC for DeSantis this time around. But it was also a lot of people associated with the Rand Paul campaign, and people may

have banished this from their memory, but the lead consultant for the Rand Paul campaign in 2016 was one Chris Lasavita, who is now Trump's campaign manager. Okay, so like the whole thing completely shifted. It went from being basically a Tea Party campaign

pocket Constitution resistance to Trump from the right to that faction of the Republican Party being completely part of his modality. And I think that was the real thing that doomed DeSantis from the start, which is that basically there was no...

There was no right faction appeal. You instead had to make an appeal, you know, as we've discussed before, based on practical expectations of I will do the things I'm the better version of this guy. And instead, people came away with, well, you're the Diet Coke version of this guy. Why don't I go, you know, with the Bud Heavy version?

Yeah, and the reason I think it happened so quickly this time around, it's what you say. And, you know, it was... Let me put it this way. It was every bit as inevitable in 2016 as...

as it is now and by similar margins. I mean, Trump didn't win 80 or 90% of votes in 2016, but it was every bit as inevitable then as it is now. The difference is, as you say, that there was this utter disbelief. I mean, there was some principle. Fine, we'll throw him a bone. I'm sure there was some principle, some lingering principle there. But it was really just this utter disbelief that it would happen. That's why we spent umpteen news cycles

you know, eight years ago talking about brokered conventions for the first time in multiple generations. And there's just none of that sense now, which is, you know, funny considering obviously Trump's very unique challenges in this race. And the fact that it's not a hundred percent certainty that he'll, you know, avoid a prison sentence. It's funny, but nobody's even having that conversation anymore. And the reason why is because he owns Trump.

the armature and the infrastructure of the party from top to bottom. And you see that, by the way, in the initial reactions to this. So you mentioned, John, Tim Scott's decision to turn around and endorse Trump. You have the reaction right now from one Matt Gaetz, a future president

whose future aspirations include replacing DeSantis as governor of Florida. He said, I hate it when mom and dad fight about the DeSantis Trump situation. And,

Calling for unity saying we already have the big media against us big tech big government a lot of the big donors and big businesses if we do unite there's still more of us and Calling for basically a unity pledge at the same time there is indications that The Trump effort is going to be targeting Bob good the Republican member from Virginia who is currently the head of the House Freedom Caucus and

who had endorsed DeSantis. And he turned right around as soon as DeSantis got out and endorsed Trump. But Mr. Lasavita, again, the Trump campaign manager, has already said that Bob Good won't be electable when we get done with him. And they are backing a primary challenge to him currently in Virginia. So I think this was a situation, this is a situation that's going to be

bloodier than Republicans would like it to be because of the level of animosity between these factions. I'm not sure how much it matters, but I do think that it's going to linger in a way that is definitely something that is not just like an online, you know, people getting into Twitter fights kind of a thing. Right. That's the thing. But I think the important thing I think you said is

then though was that it was going to linger in sort of Republican circles. I think the important thing to understand

about Trump. And it was true to a large degree with President Obama too, is they kind of existed outside the party apparatus. I mean, Obama was more aligned with it, but you have guys that sort of didn't quote unquote pay their dues, right? They sort of jumped ahead in line that were not creatures of

in the same way that George W. Bush or Joe Biden or certainly George H.W. Bush kind of came up through the ranks, had these national relationships that they were both, in their own fashion, kind of celebrity campaigns.

And, you know, I don't have any real brief for Bob Good, but I think we've seen... I have no brief for him. Yeah, no. He can fight his own fights. Sure. But I think if you kind of

I think we've seen with sort of Trump world that they that loyalty is more important than victory to them. Look no further than the Georgia Senate seat. Any of the times that they thank their Republican candidate, it's basically sort of the mint ism of, you know, I'd rather have 30 ultra conservative senators instead of.

just 60 Republicans, they would rather have 30 just, you know, Trump diehards instead of working majorities. It seems. But, you know, look, the Senate map is set up for Republicans to at worst eke it out with 51 seats. But,

I mean, it's not going to be fun. I mean, it wasn't fun the second term of Trump with the Democratic House. And I think they need to take care here, but they won't. But that a bigger tent matters and coalitions matter and having a governed majority matters. But I mean, you know, it passes prologue. You know, they'll figure that out as they go along. More of the Ben Domenech podcast right after this.

From the Fox News Podcast Network. Hey there, it's me, Kennedy. Make sure to check out my podcast, Kennedy Saves the World. It is five days a week, every week. Download and listen at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.

So you compare it to Obama and the Democratic Party, and I think in a way you're right. That's the closest parallel. But I think it's also worth saying it's not particularly close. I mean, Obama, the things they have in common is that, like you say, they're both celebrity candidates. They both oversaw the decimation of their party at the state level and at the national level. Right. Even as they had personal success. I think I think Trump.

obviously worse than Obama, both because he lost his own reelection bid and because he's lost three elections in a row in more and more disappointing fashion each successive time. But the parallels kind of end there because at least under Obama and the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party still had an agenda. It still operated independently of him. Obama's effect was to suck oxygen out of the room and suck dollars out of the room and suck attention out of the room. But Trump goes...

many, many steps beyond that in the sense that he's turned the entire party into a personal apparatus of him and his family and his close allies. And I just don't think there's any parallel there. And I think it explains what we're talking about. It just how quick the collapse has been outside of Nikki Haley's, you know, rear guard action here. So one more point before we sort of start to wrap things up.

To me part of this that's so interesting and we've done these kind of counterfactuals where it's like there are different people who you know made the decision not to run Cruz among them by the way Marco Rubio among them Who had done the 2016 thing before and decided not to have another go-round with the former president and Personally, I think that DeSantis is

And all those other people, with the possible exception of Cruz, because Cruz is a little bit younger and he still has a pretty strong national organization and name ID and all these other things. I think we're I think this is like a line in the sand where we're moving into a new generation of people.

I don't think any of these people are going to be running again. I don't think DeSantis is going to be capable of running again. I don't think that Haley is going to be capable of running again. I think that we're going to enter just like a completely new period where it's, you know, it's Matt Gates and Josh Holly and JD Vance and, you know, pick your pick your plethora of potential folks. But like I,

I think that this is kind of a cutoff point. And for all the people who are sort of saying, well, DeSantis is deciding to get out before he did any more damage to himself because he wants to be able to run in 28. I think that's fanciful. He's a loser now. He's a loser. Yeah, the distinction there is that he went up against Trump and nobody who's ever gone up against Trump has ever avoided humiliation. And some people also- Well, with one key exception.

President Joe Biden. Yeah. I'm talking about, yeah, inside the party. But I mean, I mean, I guess DeSantis is lucky that he's not bankrupt and under criminal indictment, but any, any, you know, like some of, I mean, I think this is like Perry running again in 16 or something like that. It's like, it's a total afterthought. It's like, it's not, you went from being this nationwide, uh, you know, sort of hero to conservatives, uh, to flaming out, uh,

uh, to being a, you know, someone who people dismiss as a loser. And I just, I don't see any path. Like, I mean, you can, you can maybe end up, you know, in a Senate seat of Frick Scott decides to like retire or something. I don't think that's going to happen, but I mean, that's it. Just, I don't see any future for him.

Yeah, I think that's right. And, you know, to me, the interesting thing to go back to what you said is like, what is the next three years of his administration look like? I mean, I had a thought of a sort of Sarah Palin situation where maybe it's just such a psychic thing.

You know, it's just such a psychic break. And there's so much outside noise now. And there's so many people coming from live. Sideshow Bob stepping on all the rakes kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, I almost had a thought that this could get so much worse for him as governor of Florida. But, you know, to your point, OK, Matt Gates says, I hate it when mommy and daddy fight. He also called today DeSantis dropout day, right, on Twitter. And he talked about it like Cinco de Mayo, like you're celebrating. If I'm DeSantis and I, you know, and he can...

salvage any shred of self-respect, you delete Matt Gaetz's number from your phone and you don't pick up the phone, you know, if he asks you for anything over the next three years at a bare minimum. But I don't know what kind of juice he's even going to have. Well, the funny thing about that, of course, is that Matt Gaetz's dad is going to be trying to become...

Florida House Speaker again. So that's... Yeah, oh, I mean, I would be plotting if I'm... Yeah, I mean, the salvage here is that you just spend the next three years plotting against your enemies in Tallahassee. I'm sorry, are you talking about Jeb Bush, wingman?

Don Gates? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, remember, you have to remember Matt Gates introduced Jeb Bush at his first rally in 2016 or 2015, I should say, which people have conveniently forgotten. So anyway, he was a surrogate for Jeb throughout his campaign during that campaign.

uh like a rock yes it just reminds me of that of that song it's like a rock so uh um so i i have to go out on this ron desantis announcing the end of his campaign he did that thing that i hate which is is a thing that i'm very attuned to because i have uh uh a i do i do not

frequently flex like this, but I have an absurd amount of books by Winston Churchill, which I have actually read, including his entire collected speeches in multi-volume form. And so when you get one of these fake Churchill quotes, it's just like, it just sends up like a siren for me. I'm sure there are people who are like that with Lincoln and with other, you know, various people.

historical figures who always get you know ascribe this but he used a fake churchill quote uh one which is uh uh rather rather famous just in terms of it's uh uh it's it's one of those um uh i think i think it's the uh uh failure isn't yeah it's the success is not final failure is not fatal it's the courage to continue that counts

Churchill never said anything like that. It's not. It's like it's actually I think the quote investigator looked into it and its actual original source material is from a beer ad. Yeah, I think, again, it's another it's another Straussian little clue from DeSantis here. He's saying that Trump is a fake Churchill. Well, I just I wanted to just say, I don't know if you have something in mind about

um but if you're if you're going to exit a campaign do you do either of you gentlemen uh putting yourself in that position have a quote that you would actually use or that would come readily to mind as the one that you would use on the way out the door uh so many

I think you have to think of Montgomery Burns, you know, saying that this band of anonymous troglodytes cost me the election. And yet were I to have them killed, I would be the one who goes to prison. That's democracy for you, right? So...

Either that one. If it's going to be Churchill. Have the Rolling Stones killed. If it's going to be Churchill, I would probably go with the American people can always be counted on to do the right thing after all the other possibilities. After exhausting all other possibilities. That's a very good one, John. Do you have one that comes to mind?

Two days from now, I'll probably have a great one. Not off the top of my head, but let me go in a slightly different direction that you alluded to is, you know, you look back at this cycle and out of all the people whose names were mentioned as possibilities. And again, I'm going to probably sound a little bit like a broken record.

Glenn Youngkin looks like he kind of made the right call. I think the Republican Party has irrevocably gone in a Trumpist or populist direction, whatever you want to call it. But if Donald Trump loses to Joe Biden again,

I am not hopeful, but maybe, just maybe, Republican voters or Trump voters, which are not completely overlapping, will realize that winning is better than losing. And again, I think that Nate Silver said this on his Substack this week, it's coin flip race right now, right? I mean, if we have this conversation next year,

at this time and Donald Trump has just been or is about to be sworn in again, I don't think any of us will be surprised. But if he were to lose, and if he were to lose in a way that was somewhat decisive,

I think that Glenn Youngkin, who I think the big difference between him and DeSantis is that, and I love Ron DeSantis, but Glenn Youngkin is a guy that I think can go have a beer, even as a rich guy, can go have a beer in most of America. And people will be like, ah, he seems like kind of a good guy. I think that DeSantis, and this has been my problem for the last number of cycles, the successful, boring governor,

people want to have somebody that they can relate to. And again, in Trump's way, it's like kind of weird, but like, he's just been so omnipresent in American life for the better part of what 30, 35 years. Um, it has in a native level, some really, it has peaked some amazing political skills that you can't teach. Um, I don't think Yunkin has that, but I think Yunkin is good enough on that. And I think he,

can put the rest of it together. So I think if you look at the winner of this cycle, aside from obviously Trump or just crushing everything in his path, it's, you know, Glenn Youngkin for sticking to his knitting and letting everybody else take the L and, you know, he can come back in a few years and, you know, see where the party's going. Well, I will, uh, I, I agree with what you're saying. I think you're completely right about, uh, Glenn Youngkin, but I think that there is a very obvious choice, uh, about, uh, which, uh,

quote to reference whenever you are exiting a campaign. And it is the notorious Democratic Party trickster, RFK advisor, the original and failed California state Senate candidate, Dick Tuck.

who is famous for, so to speak, for the phrase, the people have spoken the bastards, which is which is, I think, the way that every politician should exit the fray. So for Dan, for John, I'm Ben Domenech. You've been listening to this.

Special episode weighing in on the departure of Ron DeSantis from the political fray of the 2024 primary, effectively ending, I think, any possibility of having a competitive or brokered convention or any of those fanciful things that fascinate any political nerds. Thank you for listening. We'll be back soon with more. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts.

and Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. Hey, it's Clay Travis. Join me for Outkick the show as we dive deep into a mix of topics. New episodes available Monday to Friday on your favorite podcast platform and watch directly on outkick.com forward slash watch.