{"id":579946,"date":"2023-06-24T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-24T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-memo-trailing-desantis-declines-to-hit-trump-head-on\/"},"modified":"2023-06-24T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-06-24T10:00:00","slug":"the-memo-trailing-desantis-declines-to-hit-trump-head-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-memo-trailing-desantis-declines-to-hit-trump-head-on\/","title":{"rendered":"#The Memo: Trailing DeSantis declines to hit Trump head-on"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/06\/64960e13569a75.44292301.jpeg?w=900\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is trailing former President Trump by a long way in GOP primary polls \u2014 but he\u2019s still not hitting the 45th president with any bare-knuckle punches.<\/p>\n<p>DeSantis edged the temperature up only a notch or two with his speech at a Faith and Freedom Coalition event in Washington on Friday.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr1_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>The Florida governor\u00a0never mentioned Trump\u2019s name during the 30-minute address. Even his\u00a0most obvious jab at Trump was rather glancing.<\/p>\n<p>It came when, in reference to DeSantis\u2019s own long-running feud with Disney, the Florida governor complained that \u201ca lot of these Republicans are siding with Disney and they\u2019re attacking me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trump has on occasion criticized DeSantis\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>roach to the controversy while never quite fully backing Disney.<\/p>\n<p>Back in April, Trump wrote on Truth <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Social<\/a> that DeSantis was being \u201cabsolutely destroyed\u201d by Disney and argued that the feud was \u201call so unnecessary, a political stunt!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The battle between DeSantis and Disney began when the corporation objected to a bill, backed by the governor, which banned the teaching of sexuality and gender identity through the third grade. (The state board of education this year approved an expansion of the ban to all grades.)<\/p>\n<p>But the specifics of the legislation have become less politically salient than the way the dispute has turned into a symbolic struggle between an \u201canti-woke\u201d presidential candidate and a massive corporation.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr2_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>DeSantis plainly believes Trump has put himself on the wrong side of that question, at least as far as the Republican primary electorate is concerned.<\/p>\n<p>So far, however, there is precious little evidence that DeSantis\u2019s oblique attacks on Trump are working.<\/p>\n<p>The Florida governor got no noticeable boost from his campaign launch a month ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr3_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>In the weighted national polling average maintained by data site FiveThirtyEight, Trump was leading DeSantis by 31 points as of Friday afternoon. That\u2019s almost identical to Trump\u2019s lead on May 23, the day before DeSantis launched his candidacy.<\/p>\n<p>The hope for DeSantis, and for Trump\u2019s other rivals, is that the former president implodes, either as a direct result of the legal troubles he faces or because enough Republican voters finally tire of the drama he brings.<\/p>\n<p>But Trump\u2019s legal team is expected to play for time in both of the cases in which he has been charged \u2014 one in New York regarding a hush money payment to adult actress Stormy Daniels and the other relating to sensitive documents discovered at his Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr4_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Even if either, or both, proceeded to trial during primary season, it is possible that Republican voters would rally around Trump.<\/p>\n<p>But DeSantis, seeking to position himself as a Trump-like figure who is more effective at getting things done, has clearly calculated that he cannot afford to wholly alienate the former president\u2019s supporters.<\/p>\n<p>In his Friday speech, he returned to the familiar theme of his own resounding victory in Florida in last year\u2019s reelection campaign \u2014 and how this provides a roadmap for the party.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr5_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Nationally, he contended, \u201cWe cannot continue with the culture of losing. \u2026 We have 49 Republican senators right now. We should have 55 Republican senators, and we would have been able to stop a lot of [President] Biden\u2019s nonsense.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Trump was blamed by some Republicans for the failure to take back the Senate majority last year. He backed several unconventional candidates who won GOP primaries but went on to lose competitive <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">general<\/a> election contests, such as former football star Herschel Walker in Georgia and TV host Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p>The difficulties for DeSantis, and for Trump\u2019s other rivals, are being compounded by an ever-expanding field and by Trump\u2019s continuing capacity to take up much of the oxygen.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr6_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>On Thursday, former Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) became the 12th major candidate in the race. He joins former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson as the Republican candidates most willing to frontally attack Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Barring DeSantis, no other candidate is registering in double digits in the national polling averages.<\/p>\n<p>That is forcing some to sharpen their attacks on Trump, at least to a degree.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr7_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Former Vice President Mike Pence seemed to have Trump in his sights at the Faith and Freedom Coalition event Friday when he told the crowd, \u201cSome you will hear from at this very podium will say that the Supreme Court returned the issue of abortion only to the states and nothing should be done at the federal level.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That is, approximately, Trump\u2019s position.<\/p>\n<p>Pence later added that he would \u201calways be grateful for what President Donald Trump did for this country\u201d and that \u201cit was a privilege to serve at his side.\u201d\u00a0But he continued, \u201cI believe different times call for different leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Only Christie took on Trump directly, telling the crowd that the former president had \u201clet us down\u201d by his \u201cfailure of leadership\u201d and refusal to take responsibility for his actions.<\/p>\n<p>Christie was booed for those remarks, though he said during a CNN interview shortly afterward that he had expected that to happen.<\/p>\n<p>The core problem for Trump\u2019s rivals is a classic Catch-22: attacking him directly is unpopular in a party that views the former president favorably, while more subtle jabs make little impact.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, even the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference itself underlined Trump\u2019s preeminence.<\/p>\n<p>While his rivals battled for attention in a <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">series<\/a> of back-to-back speeches Friday, Trump will be the keynote speaker, closing the conference Saturday evening.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.<\/em><em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/4065338-the-memo-trailing-desantis-declines-to-hit-trump-head-on\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is trailing former President Trump by a long way in GOP primary polls \u2014 but he\u2019s still not hitting the 45th president with any bare-knuckle punches. DeSantis edged the temperature up only a notch or two with his speech at a Faith and Freedom Coalition event in Washington on Friday&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":579947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/06\/64960e13569a75.44292301.jpeg?w=1280","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[134344,134343,73243,134353,4941,144089,124783,29102,70289,73295,144090],"class_list":["post-579946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-administration","tag-campaign","tag-chris-christie","tag-court-battles","tag-donald-trump","tag-gop-presidential-race","tag-international","tag-ron-desantis","tag-senate","tag-transportation","tag-will-hurd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}