Trump Threatens to Reveal Unflattering Information About DeSantis if He Runs“
I know more about him than anybody other than perhaps his wife,” the former president reportedly said.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida spoke at a rally in Hialeah, Fla., on Monday.
Scott McIntyre for The New York Times
By Maggie Haberman
Nov. 8, 2022
Several hours before polls opened on Tuesday for Election Day in Florida, former President Donald J. Trump warned the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, against mounting a challenge to Mr. Trump’s own anticipated presidential candidacy in the 2024 election cycle.
“If he runs, he runs,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. DeSantis to a handful of reporters traveling with him on his private plane — recently refurbished and put back into use — after a rally Monday night in Dayton, Ohio.
But Mr. Trump added, in remarks published on Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal, “If he did run, I will tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering. I know more about him than anybody other than perhaps his wife, who is really running his campaign.”
The former president, preparing to announce a rare candidacy for the White House after a defeat, was thus openly threatening to smear the person who would be considered his leading rival, should he choose to run.
Mr. Trump, who for decades threatened business rivals and partners, reporters and critics alike with lawsuits or the possibility of being humiliated, has taken slash-and-burn politics to new heights.
He encouraged his supporters to disseminate dirt about President Biden’s son Hunter, brought women who had accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct to his debate against Hillary Clinton in 2016, and tweeted a vague threat about Senator Ted Cruz’s wife in the Republican presidential primary that year.
But now, advisers say, Mr. Trump is quicker to anger and frequently in a state of near-rage about not being president anymore.
On Monday night in Dayton, Mr. Trump referred to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat whose husband was recently bludgeoned with a hammer by an intruder who was looking for Ms. Pelosi, as an “animal” because she led the effort to impeach him twice as president.
Mr. Trump’s threats don’t always carry much weight, but his words are heard by his supporters, such as those who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
And over the past year, Mr. Trump’s use of violent rhetoric at his rallies has increased. He has recited accounts of grisly crimes to heighten perceptions of disorder under Democratic leadership; threatened future jail sentences for reporters to coerce them into revealing their sources, lest they face rape by other prisoners; and said he would prescribe the death penalty for drug dealers.
Mr. Trump had to be talked out of announcing his own presidential campaign on Monday night by advisers, family members and Republican leaders, according to several people briefed on the discussions. Instead, he is widely expected to make an announcement sometime next week; he urged his supporters to stay tuned for a “very big announcement” on Nov. 15.
Mr. Trump has long made clear that he wants to be president again, although several advisers said he seemed halfhearted about another campaign for much of the past 20 months. But his use of blunt threats to dissuade Mr. DeSantis suggests he is ready to re-engage politically.
Mr. DeSantis has occupied Mr. Trump’s thinking for months, as he and other potential candidates — including Mr. Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence — have made moves toward candidacies of their own.
Over the weekend, Mr. Trump road-tested a nickname for Mr. DeSantis, “Ron DeSanctimonious,” to the dismay of a number of conservatives.
Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent. She joined The Times in 2015 as a campaign correspondent and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on President Trump’s advisers and their connections to Russia. @maggieNYT |
