(FreedomBeacon.com)- Much has been made of the relationship between former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The two were apparently close at one point, with many people believing the Florida governor could become Trump’s running mate for 2024. Then, rumors started swirling that Trump was trying to distance himself from DeSantis in anticipation of the governor launching his own bid for the presidency.
Many times in the past, Trump has claimed that DeSantis would be nothing without him, as the president supported him when he was first running for governor back in 2018.
Now, DeSantis is apparently agreeing with that sentiment, as he heaped loads of praise on Trump for helping to boost his overall name recognition leading up to the 2018 gubernatorial election.
In a book that DeSantis wrote that’s coming out soon, “The Courage to Be Free,” DeSantis says:
“I knew that a Trump endorsement would provide me with the exposure to GOP primary voters across the State of Florida, and I was confident that many would see me as a good candidate once they learned about my record. I had developed a good relationship with the president largely because I supported his initiatives in Congress and opposed the Russia collusion conspiracy theory.”
Before he ran for governor, DeSantis was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, overlapping with Trump’s first two years in the White House.
While those words speak to a close relationship between the two men, they are now seen as potential fierce rivals in the upcoming presidential election. Trump has already formally announced his candidacy, but DeSantis has not done so yet. Still, it’s expected that the Florida governor will announce his own bid for the White House in the next few months.
If he were to indeed run for president, DeSantis would instantly become one of Trump’s biggest challengers in the GOP primary, if not his single biggest challenger. Anticipating that this will be the case, Trump has begun to launch attacks against DeSantis, who was once a major ally of his.
Just earlier this week, Trump posted on Truth Social, his own social media platform:
“Florida was doing GREAT long before Ron DeSanctus got there. People are fleeing from New York to Florida (and other places) because of high TAXES and out of control CRIME, not because of Governor (thank you President Trump!) DeSanctimonious.”
In his book, DeSantis has steered completely clear of the antagonism Trump has thrown to him. Instead, he just applauded the “outsider campaign” that Trump launched in 2016 to win the White House.
As he writes in the book:
“Trump also brought a unique star power to the race. If someone had asked me, as a kid growing up in the eighties and nineties, to name someone who was rich, I – and probably nearly all my friends – would have responded by naming Donald Trump.”
