Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a once-loyal member of Donald Trump‘s court, is refusing to bend a knee to the former president and says backing him in the 2024 election ‘is too much to ask’ after Trump publicly attacked his character, according to a report.

Trump reportedly said the popular governor has ‘no personal charisma’ and a ‘dull personality’ as rumors swirl the ex-president is angry DeSantis hasn’t declined to challenge him for the GOP presidential nomination. 

DeSantis, however, has told his inner circle that Trump’s ‘expectation that he bend the knee is asking too much,’ the New York Times reported.  

The governor also reportedly said his biggest regret in office is not having ‘been much louder’ in speaking out against Trump’s coronavirus pandemic response. 

The commentary comes after Trump appeared to take direct aim at DeSantis in an interview just last week when he called politicians who refuse to disclose their booster vaccination status as ‘gutless’. 

Sources close to the former president – who have recently talked to him about the governor – said Trump has grown increasingly irked by DeSantis in recent months, with Trump beginning to voice his frustrations to those in his inner circle. 

The Florida governor is extremely popular in Republican circles, and is widely seen as a leader who can push policies popularized by Trump, but without the same level of drama or baggage. 

‘In the context of the 2024 election, he usually gives DeSantis a pop in the nose in the middle of that type of conversation,’ a source who recently spoke to Trump about DeSantis told Axios.

The president also claims ‘there’s no way’ DeSantis would have ever been elected Florida governor without his support.

The two are among the most popular Republican figures in the country, and with Trump eyeing another presidential run in 2024, many political pundits believe he is irritated by DeSantis’ interest in running against him and his growing popularity. 

Trump is said to be further annoyed that DeSantis won’t say he will not run against the former president if he did opt to launch another White House bid. 

‘I wonder why the guy won’t say he won’t run against me,’ Trump has questioned to several associates and advisers, according to the Times. 

The former president hasn’t actually announced his own bid, and isn’t expected to do so until early next year. 

Those close to the former president say they expect him to launch a second White House run – but also admit Trump may choose to act as a ‘kingmaker’ for the next presidential candidate instead. 

The source, who was not named or identified, said they have heard Trump regularly criticize DeSantis on more than one occasion.  

More crossfire came from longtime Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone, who is dumping on DeSantis as an Ivy League ‘fat boy.’ 

Stone, who has known Trump for decades and advised him informally during the 2016 campaign – then got a presidential pardon following a long legal saga amid the Russia probe – tore into DeSantis following the Axios report.

‘Trump sometimes President Donald Trump hits it right on the nose. Ron DeSantis Yale Harvard fat boy can’t get out of his own way,’ he wrote. 

‘Not smart. Not honest and not going to be president,’ Stone wrote on social media.

He called DeSantis, 43: ‘An unknown congressman with a bad haircut and an ill-fitting suit until Donald Trump made him governor’ – leaving out his latest job title: governor of the state, with a population of more than 20 million, where both Stone and Trump reside.

He also wrote, without explanation: ‘I know where he was when he was missing,’ in reference to a period when DeSantis was absent from public events, fueling online speculation about his whereabouts. DeSantis’ office says he was helping his wife, Casey, with her cancer treatments.

Stone tweeted an expletive about DeSantis and linked to an Axios story about the alleged Trump-DeSantis rift.

In still more kremlinology of the rift, when DeSantis blasted covid lockdowns that began under the Trump administration, he did so on a political podcast of Josh Holmes, a former top aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a bitter Trump rival. 

The significance of the venue was not lost on a top Trump advisor, who reflected on it in an NBC news report.

‘I like Josh. Josh is great. But he’s a wholly owned subsidiary of McConnell World. And there’s no way you can tell me that this was all a coincidence,’ said the advisor.

‘Also, DeSantis and his staff knew what they were doing. How many Florida general election voters are listening to the Ruthless podcast?’ said the advisor.

The adviser claimed McConnell sees DeSantis as a ‘lesser of two evils’ and a way to irritate Trump. 

Trump and McConnell have not been on speaking terms since the Jan. 6th riot, when an angry rob ransacked the Capitol where McConnell has worked for decades. 

Despite rising tensions between the two, conservatives allege both Trump and DeSantis are vital members of the Republican party.

‘DeSantis would be a formidable 2024 candidate in the Trump lane should Trump not run,’ Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor, told the Times. 

‘He’s Trump but a little smarter, more disciplined and brusque without being too brusque.’ 

‘They’re the two most important leaders in the Republican Party,’ argued lobbyist Brian Ballard, who has connections to both men.

He also predicted Trump and DeSantis ‘will be personal and political friends for the rest of their careers’.

However, Trump reportedly views the governor as ‘ungrateful’ and argues his ‘willingness to defy him dates back several years’. 

Despite his claims, insiders still believe the root of Trump’s ire towards DeSantis appears to stem from the fact that he ‘won’t say he won’t run [in 2024]. … The others have stated pretty clearly they won’t challenge him,’ the source went on to say. 

‘Trump has been telling a range of aides a version of, he isn’t getting the deference from DeSantis that he wants in the pre-2024 leadup.’ 

The Florida governor is up for re-election this year and Trump claims he made the politician. 

The former president backed then Congressman DeSantis in the Republican primary during the 2018 gubernatorial election. 

DeSantis won the general election by heavily tying himself to Trump, including running TV ads where DeSantis taught his children how to ‘build the wall’ and say ‘Make America Great Again.’

‘Look, I helped Ron DeSantis at a level that nobody’s ever seen before,’ Trump told The New York Times’ Jeremy Peters for his forthcoming book, ‘Insurgency,’ on the rightward shift of the Republican Party.

Trump said he believed DeSantis ‘didn’t have a chance’ of winning without his help. 

When Trump was president, DeSantis was a frequent guest at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach. The two would often dine together when Trump was in town.  

Trump had also said he was so confident of being the GOP nominee he has said that if he runs again for president, most other Republicans would ‘drop out.’  

In October, Trump bragged that if he were to run against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose popularity has has soared during the pandemic, for the 2024 GOP nomination, he would easily ‘beat him’. 

‘If I faced him, I’d beat him like I would beat everyone else,’ he said at the time.

‘I don’t think I will face him,’ Trump said during the interview. ‘I think most people would drop out, I think he would drop out.’ 

Trump made the prediction during an interview with Yahoo Finance.

The former president, who lost the 2020 general election, still remains popular and has a lot of influence among Republican voters and GOP politicians as he toys with the idea of a third run at the presidency.  

‘It’s getting to a point where we really have no choice’ Trump said last month about him running.  

Donald Trump‘s lawyer accused the United States of having a ‘two tier system of justice’, noting that Donald Trump has been indicted while Bill and Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden have not.

Alina Habba told Fox News that the indictment against Trump on federal charges related to the mishandling of classified documents were a sign of ‘a sick world’.

She said it made her ‘ashamed’ to be a lawyer, called the indictment ‘persecution’, and said it was a ‘sad attempt at political interference.’

‘There is a two tier system of justice that we are seeing right now,’ she told Jesse Watters.

‘Hillary Clinton smashed a computer and got rid of emails.

‘We had recordings in sock drawers.

‘We have Biden and Obama who were hiding things – Biden still has things in Chinatown, in his home, with a son who is a drug addict.

‘And nothing happens to these people.’

Hillary Clinton’s aides admitted that they used a hammer to destroy two of her old phones.

Her staff also in 2015 deleted 30,000 emails on her server which were unrelated to government work, and were older than 60 days.

Her husband spoke to historian Taylor Branch while in office, with the pair of them recording their discussions for a book. Bill Clinton kept his tapes in a sock drawer. Conservatives have argued that they amount to presidential records and should be handed over.

Biden found classified material at the offices of his think tank, in Washington DC, and his Delaware home: they were handed over.

Obama’s office denied taking any classified documents.

Yet Habba said there was a distinct prejudice against her client, which she blamed on his political prowess.

‘When your name is Donald Trump, and you’re leading in the polls, you are going to get hit hard,’ she said.

‘You are going to get indicted, until you can’t take it any more.

‘But they picked the wrong guy.’

Habba said that Trump’s indictment – the first federal charges ever filed against a former president – was unfair, and ‘shows what a sick world we are living in.’

She continued: ‘I am petrified for the country at the moment, and sad for my client – although he is resilient and strong.

‘And it just shows me once again why we need him back in the White House.’

Habba said that the ‘establishment’ was terrified by Trump because he was independent.

‘Donald Trump is not owned by any lobbyist. He is not owned by any funder – anybody who would give him money in exchange for access,’ she said. ‘He does not need the money.

‘And that is the most frightening thing to the current political climate in America.

‘And because of that, he is the biggest threat to the corrupt political system we have; to the corrupt Justice Department we have.’

Habba said that they were looking forward to putting Trump’s version of events forward.

She attacked the special counsel, Jack Smith, and accused him of being a political hack intent on bringing Trump down.

‘All of these indictments, the American people need to remember, are a one-sided evidentiary hearing in a grand jury that is put on by far left Democrats,’ she said.

‘Jack Smith is effectively what you would call a Democrat, left wing operative.

‘All he does is hate Trump, hate the right wing.

‘He puts these people in a silo and gives them his evidence.’

She concluded: ‘Now we get the opportunity to present our evidence, and see it through.

‘If we get an impartial judge, an impartial jury, we will be vindicated on all fronts.’

Trump mocks his 2024 rivals: Ex-President says ‘DeeeSantis’ wants to change his name – because he is unhappy how people pronounce it – and jokes about Chris Christie’s weight

• Trump pointed to inconsistencies in how DeSantis pronounces his last name
• He also reposted an insult by Roger Stone mocking Chris Christie

By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor For Dailymail.com

Published: 09:39 EDT, 1 June 2023 | Updated: 11:15 EDT, 2 June 2023