Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis shot down the possibility of him dropping out of the Republican presidential primary and becoming former President Trump’s running mate on Wednesday.
DeSantis made the comments during an appearance on the “Wisconsin Right Now” radio show when the host questioned him about the potential move. DeSantis has so far struggled to gain ground against Trump, who remains dominant in primary polling.
“I don’t think so,” DeSantis said. “I’m not a number two guy. I think I’m a leader.”
“[As] Governor of Florida I’ve been able to accomplish a lot. I think I could probably do more staying there than being VP, which doesn’t really have any authority,” he added.
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The host then asked DeSantis about whether he was considering anyone to be his own running mate, but the governor dodged.
“It’s a little bit presumptuous to be doing that at this stage,” DeSantis said. “I’m here to win the early primaries, and that’s what we’ve got to do first.”
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DeSantis has centered his campaign around his resume as Florida’s governor and attacking Trump from the right.
The candidate took a shot at Trump on Fox News earlier this week during an interview with “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo. He suggested that Trump had been outmaneuvered by members of his own government during the investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
“I look back at the Hunter Biden censorship, which was a huge, huge deal to happen in the 2020 election, and yet those were Donald Trump’s own agencies that were colluding with Big Tech. I would never allow that to happen,” DeSantis said. “I would fire those people immediately, and in fact, in Florida, we’ve signed legislation that prohibits all state and local government officials in our state from colluding with tech companies to try to censor political speech of Americans. We’re also going to have one standard of justice in this country, and right now if you’re connected to the D.C. elite, like Hunter Biden. I mean look, if he were a Republican, he would have been in jail years ago, and I think we all know that.”
“But if you’re connected to the D.C. ruling class, you’re able to get away with conduct that the average American won’t, and so, what we have is these institutions have been captured by one particular faction of our society, and they wield power against other factions they don’t like,” he said.
“It requires a president that is disciplined, a president that is focused,” DeSantis finished. “You can’t get distracted on this.”
Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.