Florida Governor Ron DeSantis played his obvious ‘Trump’ card against his main rival Monday by suggesting the frontrunners for both the Democratic and Republican nominations are too old to become president.

DeSantis, 44, said voters concerns about Donald Trump, 77, and Joe Biden, 80, ages are ‘absolutely a legitimate concern.’  

The governor continues to badly trail Trump in the Republican primary race for the right to challenge Biden, the nation’s oldest-ever president in 2024. 

‘The presidency is not a job for someone that’s 80 years old,’ DeSantis said Tuesday. ‘And there’s nothing, you know, wrong with being 80. Obviously I’m the governor of Florida. I know a lot of people who are elderly. They’re great people.’   

‘But you’re talking about a job where you need to give it 100 percent. We need an energetic president.’

DeSantis believes he could use his age against Biden were he to become the Republican nominee and would be the third youngest president ever elected – behind Teddy Roosevelt and JFK – if he were to win the nomination and 2024 election.

‘I think Americans – if Biden’s the Democrat nominee, I’m the Republican nominee – I think there’s going to be a lot of Americans that are going to want to see a generational passing of the torch,’ he said. 

He also told CBS News he thinks the nation’s Founding Fathers ‘probably would’ve put an age limit on some of these offices’ if they had a second go at writing the Constitution. 

CBS News cited its own poll released Sunday saying over 53 percent of Americans believe the presidency is too demanding for someone over 75, with 78 percent concerned with their ability to perform the job. 

DeSantis also told Norah O’Donnell that he would send US troops to the shared border with Mexico and said that he wanted to prevent a war with China.

Trump was the nation’s oldest president when he first took office at 70, with only Biden surpassing him at 78 in 2022.  

While the Florida Republican – who cruised to re-election last year – has seen positive polling numbers in a head-to-head against Biden, he still has a lot to do to beat his predecessor.

Trump remains miles ahead of his Republican counterparts, a new national poll shows – despite four arrests, a historic mugshot, and not attending this week’s GOP debate where many of his rivals had a strong showing.

Organized by InsiderAdvantage, the survey of likely Republican voters showed the former president, despite his controversies, has a full 27 percent lead over his closest second in DeSantis, and 34 percent over South Carolina’s Nikki Haley.

Next was the man many thought won the noticeably Trump-less debate, biotech millionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, who recently beat out DeSantis as the perceived winner in a poll organized by DailyMail.com. Here, he only scored fourth, with 7 percent.

Conducted after the debate, it also indicated a trend of rising support for both polls’ runner up in DeSantis, as well as fellow debate standout Haley. That said, both remain well behind the embattled ex-head of state.   

However, recent polling shows DeSantis in a 47-47 tie with the current president.

Biden narrowly trails Trump, the GOP frontrunner, 47 to 46 in a new CNN / SSRS poll. That is in keeping with polling averages like one by RealClearPolitics, which has Biden leading Trump by 1 percentage point. 

Voters in those polls continued to register deep concerns about Biden and his age in particular.

It shows 73 per cent seriously concerned about his mental competence and 76 per cent concerned about his ability to serve out his four-year term if reelected. 

Two-thirds of Democrats, or 67 per cent, say the party should nominate someone besides Biden, up from 54 per cent in March. 

Both Biden and Trump are at 35 per cent favorability. 

The poll comes as Biden prepares to fly to India for a meeting of world leaders at the G20 summit. 

Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist RESIGNS from the House to start campaigning against Ron DeSantis early in the showdown for Florida governor

• Democratic Florida Rep. Charlie Crist is resigning from his House seat effective on Wednesday
• Comes two months before the election where he will attempt to unseat GOP Florida Governor Ron DeSantis 
• In the meantime, Florida’s 13th congressional district will go without a representative in the House
• DeSantis is still favored to win his reelection as Florida governor

By Katelyn Caralle, U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.com

Published: 12:35 EDT, 31 August 2022 | Updated: 12:36 EDT, 31 August 2022

Ron DeSantis hosted Gold Star and military families, veterans and victims of 9/11 for a Memorial Day BBQ on Sunday where they shared with the Florida governor frustrations with Donald Trump hosting the same weekend a Saudi Arabian-funded golf tournament.

The Navy veteran and his wife and Florida first lady Casey DeSantis had 500 people at the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee and made time for a more than hour-long conversation with families of those who lost loved-ones in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The 2024 candidate also delivered remarks in Jacksonville, Florida on Monday honoring the fallen.

Meanwhile, the former president was hosting at Trump National in Sterling, Virginia – just outside of Washington, D.C. – the LIV golf tournament, which is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia. 

DeSantis met on Sunday with eight families who lost loved ones in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and heard from those upset that Trump held the tournament.

Brett Eagleson, who was 15 when he lost his father in the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11, said that he appreciated DeSantis hearing their concerns and was disappointed in the former president.

‘We shared with [DeSantis] our past dealings with President Trump and we just laid out what a stark contrast it was between what he was doing that day; hosting Gold Star family members, members from the 9/11 community and active members of the Military at the Florida governor’s House. Compare that to what a former president is doing that same weekend; right outside the Pentagon, he’s hosting the Saudis in a Saudi-funded golf tournament,’ Eagleson, 37, detailed to DaillyMail.com.

‘But just think that, you know, that stark contrast doesn’t need more explanation as to how DeSantis feels versus how Trump feels,’ he added. ‘So I thought it was really powerful and it sent a significant message as to where the Governor’s priorities are at least.’

Eagleson is president of the organization 9/11 Justice and has spent seven years fighting for more information about Saudi Arabia’s alleged role in the attacks.

He confirmed to DailyMail.com that the families in the meeting Sunday shared with DeSantis how they felt about Trump’s golf tournament – and said that DeSantis seemed willing to meet with the group in the future.

‘I brought that up personally,’ Eagleson said. ‘I wanted him to be aware of that.’

‘Kudos to you, Mr. Governor for hosting us and Goldstar families on Memorial Day, honoring the lives of the people that give their lives for this country while President Trump is hosting a Saudi funded golf tournament.’

DeSantis lamented that the families are still scouring for answers more than two decades after the terrorist attack.

‘They’ve had a lot of frustration about getting justice based on the 9/11 attacks,’ DeSantis told Fox and Friends on Monday morning. ‘They’re suing Saudi Arabia, they’re trying to get more documents.’

‘They’ve been made promises in the past about getting help, and then, basically, some of our elected leaders have reneged on those promises,’ the governor added. ‘And so, I think that they’ve been punched in the gut a number of times. And I think it’s been difficult to now be two decades later and still trying to get full justice.’

Ron, Casey and their three children – Madison, five, Mason, four, and Mamie, two – appeared for a BBQ celebration honoring fallen service members in Tallahassee, Florida on Sunday.

The family mingled with the 500 guests before the Florida first couple leaves for Iowa this week to start the governor’s first campaign swing to early primary states after announcing his 2024 Republican presidential primary run last week.

DeSantis’ campaign kick-off will start in Des Moines, Iowa on Tuesday and continue in four more cities in the first-in-the-nation primary contest state on Wednesday.

He and Casey will then head to New Hampshire for a four-city swing on Thursday, followed by the final stop in South Carolina on Friday.

Before taking off for the midwest, Gov. DeSantis delivered three-minute remarks at the Veterans Memorial Ceremony in Jacksonville.

Ron Klain says he believes Biden WILL run in 2024 – but admits anything could happen before then and they don’t want to announce now to trigger federal election law

• White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said Thursday that President Joe Biden is running for re-election – he just can’t phrase it that way yet 
• Klain was asked about Biden’s political future after the president gave himself some wiggle room during Sunday’s interview on 60 Minutes 
• ‘That’s kind of the formulation he has to give to not like trigger federal election law and require us to file a bunch of forms,’ Klain said at the Atlantic Festival 
• Klain also predicted that the Democrats would keep control of the House and Senate after the November midterms 
• He primarily pointed to the parties’ divergent viewpoints on abortion rights and GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bill to ban abortion nationally at 15 weeks
• ‘Sen. Lindsey Graham came out with legislation to not just ban abortion, by the way, but to impose up to a five-year criminal penalty on doctors,’ Klain warned

By Nikki Schwab, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Published: 18:27 EDT, 22 September 2022 | Updated: 18:38 EDT, 22 September 2022

Ron DeSantis attacked Disney, the NAACP travel ban to Florida and Republican’s ‘culture of losing’ in a campaign launched with Elon Musk plagued by glitches on Twitter Spaces.

The highly-anticipated start of his 2024 White House run started 26 minutes late and crashed multiple times as hundreds of thousands of users tuned in to listen to DeSantis’ conversation with the Twitter CEO.

The Florida Governor shrugged off the shambolic start to then tout his record dealing with COVID, taking veiled swipes at Donald Trump and promising to reverse ‘everything’ President Biden was doing at the border.

Musk at one point said the ‘servers were strained’ and the host blamed the glitches on the number of people tuning in, which he claimed were a ‘good thing.’

‘Just try and get it going,’ listeners could hear as it became clear frustration was growing.

Moderator David Sacks, a tech entrepreneur close to Musk, started the talk by claiming DeSantis was engaged in a ‘first is social media’ by ‘making history’ with the announcement.

The event, however, is more likely to be remembered for its series of glitches.

Once the event was finally off the ground, DeSantis did confirm to the Tesla and Twitter CEO that he has entered the Republican presidential primary race just hours after filing the appropriate paperwork needed to launch a bid for the White House. 

‘Thank you for putting up with these technical issues, we are definitely breaking new ground here,’ Sacks said when the event was up and running. ‘As far as I know, no major presidential candidate has ever announced their candidacy on social media in this way.’ 

Throughout the talk, DeSantis was able to promote his presidential platform for the first time as an official candidate to an audience of around 300,000 people, at times.

A series of political figures and lawmakers were invited to ‘come off mute’ and ask the new candidate questions. This included Rep. Thomas Massie, one of the five lawmakers who have already endorsed DeSantis, and conservative personality Dana Loesch.

DeSantis specifically attacked the federal response to COVID-19, and how he paved the way for reopening earlier than other states; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) issuing a travel advisory for Florida; and Disney for ‘injecting gender ideology in elementary school.’

DeSantis also took a veiled swipe at Trump by claiming he will put an end to the recent Republican ‘culture of losing.’

‘Last week, the NAACP issued a travel advisory against your state claiming that Florida is not a safe place for minorities to visit,’ moderator Sacks said to DeSantis. ‘What do you say to those who’ve been advised that somehow they aren’t welcome in your state?’

‘Claiming that Florida is unsafe is a total farce,’ the governor replied. ‘I mean, are you kidding me? You look at cities around this country… In Florida our crime rate is at a 50 year low. You look at the top 25 cities for crime in America, Florida does not have a single one amongst the top 25.’

‘And if you look at cities like Baltimore and Chicago, you got kids more likely to get shot than to receive a first class education, yet I don’t see the NAACP batting an eye about all the outrage and the carnage that’s happening in those areas.’

‘So this is a political stunt,’ DeSantis insisted. ‘These left wing groups have been doing it for many, many years. And at the end of the day, what they’re doing is colluding with legacy media to try to manufacture a narrative. Now the good news is, fewer Americans are gullible enough to believe this dribble.’

Just one hour before the video was released, Donald Trump got one more swipe in at his main competitor – and almost asking for DeSantis to get the same sort of attacks from the left that the former president has received over the last several years. 

‘I’d like to personally congratulate ‘Rob’ DeSanctimonious on finally announcing that he will be entering the race for President of the United States,’ he quipped in a post on his Truth Social platform. ‘Hopefully he will get the full experience of being attacked by the Marxists, Communists, and Radical Left Lunatics of our Country, without which he will never know the kind of job he is doing.’

Trump added: ‘These Lowlifes & Misfits are far worse than the leaders of hostile foreign countries. They must be soundly defeated in order to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’

Regarding the disastrous start to the Twitter Spaces announcement, Democratic National Committee spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement: ‘In true Ron DeSantis fashion, his presidential launch was quite literally not ready for primetime. Welcome to the race for the MAGA base, Ron!’ 

Just 24 hours ahead of the chat, the candidate’s wife Casey DeSantis posted to her Twitter a 30-second clip previewing the launch. DeSantis reposted the Florida first lady’s tweet.

The video sparked some confusion, with some believing it was the official launch of DeSantis’ presidential campaign and others questioning why his team decided to use a narrator with a British accent.

Before launching a bid, DeSantis had to rely on his allies in the Florida legislature to pass a law that would allow him to run for the highest U.S. office while still continuing to serve out his second term as governor of the Sunshine State.

The so-called ‘resign to run’ rule was nixed last month by the Republican supermajority in the Florida legislature and DeSantis signed the bill into law, paving the way for him to launch a presidential bid without being required to step down as governor. 

DeSantis is largely seen as the only candidate that might be able to give Trump a run for his money in the 2024 primary.

But Trump still holds a commanding poll lead over DeSantis – and all other 2024 Republican challengers.

The former president holds an outright majority, leading the field with support from 53 percent of Republicans in the latest CNN/SSRS poll released Wednesday, which puts his backing from voters at double that of DeSantis’ 26 percent support.

This is keeping in line with other recent surveys that show DeSantis far behind Trump, with a spread that has only grown with Trump facing a slew of legal challenges.

At the age of 44, DeSantis is one of the younger candidates to launch a bid for the Oval Office and is more than three decades younger than his main rival.

Some supporters of DeSantis say it’s time for new blood and there are even calls for there to be an age limit put on who can run for President of the United States as the country braces for a showdown between 76-year-old Trump and 80-year-old President Joe Biden.

Donald Trump tried to take credit for his GOP rival Ron DeSantis and his meteoric rise through the party last night, insisting the Florida Governor would be nowhere today if it wasn’t for his 2018 endorsement. 

DeSantis stormed to victory yesterday, defeating Democrat Charlie Crist by a whopping 19 points in yesterday’s midterm and flipping the blue stronghold of Miami Dade county. 

He is now being praised as the future of the Republican party, with many hopeful he will announce a 2024 Presidential Run. 

Trump – who watched from Mar-a-Lago last night as many of his chosen candidates lost – is not among them. 

After warning DeSantis against a White House run yesterday by threatening that he ‘knows more about him than his wife’, Trump gave an interview to NewsNation where he tried to take credit for DeSantis’ entire career. 

‘He was not going to be able to even be a factor in the race. And as soon within moments, the race was over. I got him the nomination. He didn’t get it. I got it, because the minute I made that endorsement, he got it.’ 

‘Then he ran and he wasn’t supposed to be able to win. I did two rallies, we had 52,000 people each one and he won. 

‘I thought that he could have been more gracious. But that’s up to him.’ 

DeSantis won yesterday by 19 points – a huge margin and one he couldn’t have dreamed of in 2018 when he clinched victory by just 1 point – after being endorsed by Trump. 

It seemed like a political match made in heaven; DeSantis even posed with his kids and a copy of Trump’s The Art of the Deal book to pledge his allegiance. 

But in recent weeks and months, a rivalry has formed between the pair, down mostly to rumors that both men are eyeing a 2024 Presidential campaign. 

At a rally this weekend, Trump referred to the Florida Governor as ‘Ron De-Sanctimonious’. 

Yesterday, Trump said it would be a ‘big mistake’ if DeSantis ran again. 

‘I don’t know that he’s running. I think if he runs he could hurt himself very badly.

‘I think he would be making a mistake. I think the base would not like it.’ 

He also threatened DeSantis and warned him against a 2024 bid. 

‘If he runs, he runs. 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.’ 

Ignoring the races where his favorites lost, he told followers on Truth Social that it had been a ‘GREAT EVENING’. 

He is however said to be privately ‘livid’ that his candidates lost. 

CNN’s Jim Acosta cites an unnamed adviser who said he is ‘screaming at everybody’ today. 

In an interview yesterday, he said he deserved credit if Republicans won – but shouldn’t be blamed in the scenario of a loss. 

‘If they win I should get all the credit. And if they lose, I should not be blamed at all. But it will probably be just the opposite. 

‘When they win, I think they’re going to do very well, I’ll probably be getting very little credit, and if they do badly, they will blame everything on me.

‘I’m prepared for everything. We’ll defend ourselves.’ 

He also took credit for Ron DeSantis 2018 win, saying he ‘was not going to be a factor’ in the race before his endorsement. 

Trump is being blamed for the disappointing Republican results overnight. 

Many say it’s time to ‘move on’ from the Trump era, and that his selection of ‘flawed’ candidates was to blame for underwhelming results. 

Republicans may still take both the House and the Senate, though a result is not expected for days if not months. 

They did not perform as spectacularly as had been predicted, however. 

Cautious while the remaining results trickle in, Republicans launched a stinging post-mortem on Wednesday morning and harked back to Mitch McConnell’s August warning that poor candidate quality could stop the party from flipping the Senate.

‘This is a pivot point for the Republican party. Donald Trump is no doubt in the rearview mirror. It is time to move on with the party,’ Geoff Duncan, the Republican Lt. Governor of Georgia, told CNN. 

Ignoring the races where his favorites lost, he told followers on Truth Social that it had been a ‘GREAT EVENING’. In an interview yesterday, he said he deserved credit if Republicans won – but shouldn’t be blamed in the scenario of a loss. 

‘If they win I should get all the credit. And if they lose, I should not be blamed at all. But it will probably be just the opposite. When they win, I think they’re going to do very well, I’ll probably be getting very little credit, and if they do badly, they will blame everything on me.

‘I’m prepared for everything. We’ll defend ourselves.’ 

He also took credit for Ron DeSantis 2018 win, saying he ‘was not going to be a factor’ in the race before his endorsement. 

‘He was not going to be able to even be a factor in the race. And as soon within moments, the race was over. 

‘I got him the nomination. He didn’t get it. I got it, because the minute I made that endorsement, he got it.’ 

‘Then he ran and he wasn’t supposed to be able to win. I did two rallies, we had 52,000 people each one and he won. I thought that he could have been more gracious. But that’s up to him.’  

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis‘ landslide win on Tuesday night elevated talk of a 2024 presidential bid and put him on a collision course with Donald Trump.

He defeated Democratic rival Charlie Crist by at least 19 points – a sharp contrast to his first race for governor four years ago, when he sketched out a victory by less than one percent. 

DeSantis, 44, has not indicated what his political future holds, but when his supporters chanted ‘two more years, two more years’ at his victory party Monday night, he smiled.

All political eyes will be watching him to see if he launches a presidential bid. Some Republicans are already switching loyalities.

‘This was the end of the Trump era and the dawn of the DeSantis era,’ a Republican operative close to the Trump orbit told ABC News. ‘Like every other Trump catastrophe, he did this to himself with stupid and reckless decisions.’ 

Impressively in Tuesday’s contest, DeSantis turned blue areas of the Sunshine state red. He won by double digits in heavily Hispanic Miami-Dade County, carried Democratic Palm Beach and even got Trump’s vote.

It might be the last time he can count on the former president checking his name at the ballot box. 

Trump has taken credit for DeSantis’ meteoric rise in the Republican Party but as the 2024 speculation increased, he also has issued a series of warning shots to now his frenemy. 

The former president is reminding people that it was his endorsement of DeSantis that propelled the then-congressman to victory in the crowded 2018 GOP gubernatorial primary.

‘And as soon as I endorsed him, within moments, the race was over,’ Trump told News Nation. ‘I got him the nomination. He didn’t get it. I got it, because the minute I made that endorsement, he got it.’ 

But, privately, Trump has fumed about DeSantis, who has, in many ways, modeled his political life on Trump’s. Both men have raged against the establishment to make their mark, have photogenic wives, and have solidified their appeal to the GOP base.

He was ‘livid’ and ‘screaming at everyone,’ after Tuesday night’s disappointing results for Republicans, who didn’t get the red wave of wins the they expected, a Trump adviser told CNN. 

Trump has said if DeSantis did run, he would let loose on things he knows about the governor. He even indicated DeSantis’ wife Casey would be a target of his ire.

‘If he runs, he runs,’ Trump said. 

He added: ‘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.’ 

Trump has never been shy about attacking his rivals or their families. During the 2016 Republican primary, Trump derided Marco Rubio as ‘Little Marco’ and attacked Ted Cruz’s wife Heidi on her looks. 

He’s already trying out nicknames on the Florida governor. 

He called him ‘Ron DeSanctimonious’ at a political rally in Miami on Monday but then, on Tuesday, said he voted for DeSantis when he cast his ballot in Palm Beach. 

DeSantis, when asked about the 2024 contest, has said he was focused on his re-election campaign.

But, in his victory speech, he bragged about turning Florida from a battleground state to one in Republicans’ column.

‘The people have delivered their verdict: Freedom is here to stay,’ he said. ‘Now, thanks to the overwhelming support of the people of Florida we not only won this election; we have rewritten the political map.’  

DeSantis rose to national prominence during the COVID pandemic when he reopened schools and businesses at a time medical experts were advocating lockdowns. The governor also banned mask mandates and vaccine passports.

The moves made him a star among conservatives. He also seized on other issues that appeal to the right: endorsing legislation that would ban schools from teaching young children about sexual orientation and gender identity, which set him up in a high-profile clash with the Disney corporation. 

And he paid to have migrants shipped from the southern border to Democratic strongholds like New York City and Martha’s Vineyard.

All of it has boosted his fundraising. 

DeSantis raised $196 million for his re-election. He spent $130 million and still has $66 million left, according to campaign finance reports. 

Ron DeSantis has penned a new book chronicling his life in public service, as his popularity soars and speculation grows he will run for president in 2024.

The Republican Florida Governor, who this month won re-election by a landslide, will publish his new book in February. It is being seen by some political analysts as a manifesto, and another step towards his potential White House bid.

The autobiography, called ‘The Courage to Be Free: Florida‘s Blueprint for America’s Revival’, is expected to cover key moments in DeSantis’s life.

The book will tell his story ‘growing up in a working-class family, playing in the Little League World Series, working his way through Yale University and Harvard Law School, volunteering for the Navy after 9/11 and serving in Iraq,’ Fox News said.

It will also shed new light on his marriage to former news and TV host Casey DeSantis, her battle with breast cancer, and the three children they share together.

DeSantis’ popularity has soared in the last two years. In a midterm election that saw results go worse than expected for Republicans, he was a stand-out winner.

He won re-election for a second term as Florida governor with a landslide, beating Democrat Charlie Crist with almost 60 percent of the vote – in further sign of Florida’s Republican wave.

Meanwhile, a poll earlier this month weighing up potential 2024 candidates found DeSantis is now seven points ahead of former president Donald Trump.

The YouGov poll was the first survey looking at the 2024 election cycle – as well as being the first since February 2016 to suggest that Trump’s dominance over the GOP is weakening. It found 42 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents now prefer DeSantis over Trump to be the party’s 2024 standard-bearer.

DeSantis’s surge has been put down to his assault on what he calls ‘woke’ values. In his victory speech at his campaign’s headquarters, he declared: ‘Florida is where woke goes to die,’ saying Florida voters had ‘rewritten the political map’.

He has also supported Florida’s so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay‘ law and Stop W.O.K.E. Act – both of which have proved controversial and have faced lawsuits, but have proved popular among Republicans, particularly those in Trump’s MAGA camp.

DeSantis’s autobiography will be his second book, and will be published on February 28 by Broadside, the conservative arm of HarperCollins Publishing – which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

In a statement shared via Fox News (which, like HarperCollins, falls under Rupert Murdoch’s media empire – albeit under different umbrella companies) – Broadside said the book will ‘enter on critical issues that brought [DeSantis] to the center of the debate over the future of our country. 

‘He shares his thinking from when he was fighting back against COVID mandates and restrictions, critical race theory, woke corporations’ and what Broadside describes as ‘the partisan legacy media.’ The statement added that the book will detail DeSantis’s ‘bold, substantial policy achievements.’

In a statement to Fox News, DeSantis said Florida has established ‘a blueprint for governance that has produced tangible results while serving as a rebuke to the entrenched elites who have driven our nation into the ground.’  

DeSantis is yet to make any formal announcement about a potential White House bid. He has previously discounted talk of a 2024 presidential run, instead focusing on his gubernatorial re-election, which will see him remain as Florida’s governor until 2026 – unless he chooses to step down.

Regardless, he has become a major face of the Republican party, and the possibility of him running has appeared to rattle Trump – who announced his own 2024 bid earlier this month. ‘He could hurt himself badly,’ Trump told reporters when asked about the possibility of going up against DeSantis for the Republican candidacy.

Many in the Republican party fear that should the pair go head-to-head in the 2024 presidential primaries, the party could tear itself apart.

Sen. Ron Johnson accused Antony Blinken of telling a ‘boldface lie’ to Congress about his communications with Hunter Biden after it his emails with the first son were revealed. 

The Wisconsin Republican revealed that Blinken, when he was still working for the Biden campaign in December 2020, had come in to sit for a transcribed interview with his team. He was then aiming for the secretary of State job, a Senate-confirmed position.  

‘Now, because of more information that’s come out, we know that he lied boldface to Congress about never emailing Hunter Biden,’ Johnson told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. 

‘My guess is he told a bunch of other lies that hopefully we’ll be able to bring him and his wife back in, tell them to preserve their records. You cannot trust Joe Biden. You cannot trust Hunter Biden.’ 

Asked if he believed Blinken lied under oath, Johnson said: ‘Yes, he did.’ 

‘He said he did not email Hunter Biden, and now we have those emails. We also know that his wife, using her private email address when she was a[n] employee of the State Department, was basically a conduit between her husband and Hunter Biden as well,’ Johnson continued. 

The Wisconsin Republican said Blinken needs to be subpoenaed, but without Democrat support he would not have the authority to do so. 

‘If he wants to proclaim his innocence, I doubt he’ll do that, but he must and she must preserve their records, their personal emails. When you get to the bottom of this, we need to show how corrupt these individuals are.’ 

The Functional Government Initiative, a government watchdog group, obtained a trove of emails from Blinken during his time in the Obama administration showing Blinken and Hunter Biden writing to each other and setting up personal meetings through his private AOL account during his time as deputy secretary of state. 

Emails obtained by Fox News showed that Blinken met with Hunter Biden at the State Department in 2015 while Hunter was on the board of Burisma. 

Emails from Hunter’s abandoned laptop show Blinken and his wife Evan Ryan have long had contact with the first son. On multiple occasions, Hunter forwarded communications about setting up meetings with Blinken to fellow board members of Burisma.  

Meanwhile, Mike Morell last week told the House Judiciary Committee that he was asked by Blinken – who at the time was a senior member of the Biden campaign – to help discredit the laptop reporting.

Morell was a former acting CIA director, serving for two months in 2011 and four months from 2012 to 2013. He retired from the CIA in September 2013. 

He coordinated a letter from former intelligence chiefs claiming that Hunter Biden‘s laptop was Russian disinformation because he wanted to help Joe Biden‘s presidential campaign.

The Judiciary Committee, led by Jim Jordan, is currently investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop, as well as the Biden family businesses.

Morell ‘recently’ conducted a transcribed interview with Jordan’s team and was asked about the Biden campaign’s response to the laptop.

The laptop, which had been left in a Delaware repair store, was touted by Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s lawyer, as providing evidence of supposed corruption among the Biden family.

The Biden campaign said the efforts to publicize the contents of the laptop bore the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.

The laptop included explicit photos of the troubled Hunter Biden naked, with prostitutes, and taking drugs, as well as multiple emails and texts between the 53-year-old and his father.

Morell said that he was asked by Blinken to rally former intelligence chiefs to agree that the laptop looked like a smear campaign.

He carried out ‘a little bit of my own research,’ and then reached out to retired CIA senior operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos for assistance in compiling the letter.

The letter was ultimately signed by 51 former intelligence officials, including himself and four other former CIA directors, including John Brennan and Leon Panetta.

The letter was published by Politico five days after The New York Post first reported on the contents of the laptop.

The headline for Politico’s story, on October 19, 2020, was: ‘Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former officials say.’

The letter alleged that The New York Post story ‘has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.’ 

Several media outlets, including DailyMail.com, have since confirmed the contents of the laptop and that it belonged to Hunter Biden. 

Joe Biden used the letter during the October 22 debate against Donald Trump, saying he thought the reporting around his son’s abandoned computer was the work of Russia.

Morell was thanked for his work in coordinating the letter, with Steve Ricchetti, chairman of the Biden campaign, telephoning him after the debate to say thank you.

He was then said to be in consideration for the role of CIA director – a job that ultimately went to William Burns.

Morell, who has been a consultant, strategist, lecturer and author since his resignation almost a decade ago, said he was never formally in talks for the role.

On Thursday, Jordan and Michael Turner, the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote to Blinken requesting his communications with Morell around the laptop.

They issued a statement accusing Morell and the other intel chiefs of ‘concerted effort to minimize and suppress’ information harmful to the Biden campaign. 

‘Based on Morell’s testimony, it is apparent that the Biden campaign played an active role in the origins of the public statement, which had the effect of helping to suppress the Hunter Biden story and preventing American citizens from making a fully informed decision during the 2020 presidential election,’ they wrote. 

‘Although the statement’s signatories have an unquestioned right to free speech and free association—which we do not dispute—their reference to their national security credentials lent weight to the story and suggested access to specialized information unavailable to other Americans. 

‘This concerted effort to minimize and suppress public dissemination of the serious allegations about the Biden family was a grave disservice to all American citizens’ informed participation in our democracy.’