Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has pushed back on reports he may seek the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, got some rare praise from one of television’s most notable liberals.
During his HBO program Friday night, host Bill Maher took a favorable view of the Sunshine State Republican who is running for reelection this year.
Leftist political commentator Krystal Ball insisted during a discussion about the Jan. 6 hearings that prosecuting former President Donald Trump was “not going to solve our problem” as she suggested that the real problem was the rise of DeSantis, who has surged to the top of the GOP and was recently named as one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People of 2022.”
“Do you think that Ron DeSantis is going to be way better than Donald Trump?” Ball asked.
“Yes, yes I do,” Maher answered immediately.
“He’s not certifiably insane. That’s a great one to start off with,” Maher continued. “You know what Ron DeSantis won’t be doing? He won’t be poop-tweeting every day. It won’t be, like, having feuds with Bette Midler on Twitter. He’s not an insane person.”
DeSantis also received support from Elon Musk last week after the Tesla co-founder and SpaceX founder was asked on Twitter who he was leaning toward supporting for the 2024 presidential election and responded, “DeSantis.”
“I supported [Andrew] Yang last time, but DeSantis has a better chance of winning,” Musk said later.
Without the former president in the mix, DeSantis is easily the top preferred 2024 GOP presidential candidate.
“DeSantis’ rising star within GOP ranks is said to have rattled the former president so much that he is now looking at various ways to unsettle any plans the Florida governor may have for a presidential bid of his own,” the Daily Mail reported.
“They include Trump launching his 2024 from the Sunshine State and hosting a massive party close to the governor’s mansion,” the report continued.
Previous reports suggested that Trump may announce his 2024 bid as early as this summer, not waiting for the results of the 2022 midterms which Republicans are seen as favorites to win back control of Congress amid historically bad approval ratings for President Biden and Vice President Harris.
But GOP insiders “continue to urge him not to announce a campaign before the midterm elections, since they fear it would help Democratic efforts to frame Senate and congressional campaigns around the divisive former president,” The Washington Post reported.
Also, DeSantis has repeatedly beaten Trump in straw polling at the Western Conservative Summit in Colorado.
DeSantis has also reportedly told top Republican donors that “no one’s nomination is inevitable.” In addition, he appears to believe that he has “overtaken Trump with the party’s major donors, according to an ally in touch with the governor,” the Post noted further.
“A former aide said DeSantis has spoken about wanting to expand his dominance in that realm, including by getting a contribution from Peter Thiel, the billionaire investor who backed Trump in 2016 and has put nearly $30 million behind a pair of Republican Senate candidates this year,” the paper noted.
“I think DeSantis is the only one besides Trump who has a chance in hell. And I would bet a lot of money on that,” Darren Blanton, a Dallas-based venture capitalist who served as an adviser to Trump’s transition, told the Post.
“At first I thought DeSantis had no chance because he seemed more like an introvert and strategist, but not a charismatic celebrity, and I pretty much told him that to his face. But he has really impressed me by how much better he has gotten,” he said.
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