Rolling Stone reported Sunday that former President Donald Trump is not happy with Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., who some say will use his 2022 win to propel himself to the Republican nomination for president in 2024. DeSantis tried to throw himself into the same stunt that Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, was doing, shipping immigrants and refugees off to other cities around the country and politicizing it with Fox.
It put DeSantis in a difficult position, commentators said, so he went to Texas to ship their immigrants to Martha's Vineyard instead of immigrants in Florida. One of those was a one-year-old baby. It has become the major news story for the past several days, with immigrant rights groups revealing that the migrants were lied to about where they were going and what was happening. Some were told they were being taken to Boston, others had appointments to appear in immigration courts in Seattle but were shipped to the northeast instead.
Trump is furious, not because of the stunt using human beings as political pawns, but because DeSantis has become a Fox News star, Rolling Stone reported.
"Trump has fumed over all the praise DeSantis' action has been receiving in influential conservative circles lately," the report said. He "has privately accused DeSantis of doing this largely to generate a 2024 polling boost for himself among GOP voters."
Trump has been trying to use the search warrant executed at his country club in Florida to raise money for a "legal defense fund" and paint himself as a victim. He was also said to be fuming that the whole idea was his and not DeSantis' or Abbott's.
The move by the GOP governors has eliminated the coverage Trump is getting on conservative outlets, which dramatically cuts into his fundraising. It comes at a time that those inside TrumpWorld say the former president thinks he should be dominating the news. While neither Trump nor DeSantis has declared they're running for president, Trump has indicated he's all in. Trump's biggest ploy to get rid of DeSantis in 2024 could be stopping him this year, but Trump has been unwilling to go that far and it may be to his own detriment as many GOP voters see DeSantis as a more intelligent version of Trump.
According to the reports about 50 Venezuelans and Columbian migrants were tricked into the Martha's Vineyard flight. Most were fleeing socialism and communism, policies that Republicans once opposed at all costs. In the past, Republicans have been eager to accept those fleeing such leaders, but that has changed.
On Sunday, Trump announced he was returning to Florida after being away for several months.
