Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday declined to weigh in on the divide among Republicans over who represents the future of the party, him or Donald Trump, saying instead: “People just need to relax a little bit on some of these things. ”
“I mean it. We just held an election,” DeSantis said at a press conference in Lee County. “We have this Georgia (Senate) runoff that’s very important for Republicans to win that Georgia runoff.”
But DeSantis continued to tout his performance in last week’s election, in which he defeated Democrat Charlie Crist by 19 points, calling Florida “the biggest bright spot” for Republicans.
“It wasn’t as bright in a lot of other parts of the country,” DeSantis said. “It was a subpar performance given the dynamics that are there.”
The remarks came after DeSantis was asked about Trump’s recent criticism of him, which the Florida governor widely dismissed as “noise.”
DeSantis was not asked or commented on Trump’s decision to launch a third presidential campaign.
DeSantis offered no insight Wednesday into his political future. Instead, he looked ahead to the upcoming Florida legislative session, when Republicans will have supermajorities in both houses.
“What people like me, who were given the opportunity to go on, is, OK, let’s do something with it,” he said. “And the reason we got the historic win is, at the end of the day, we led, we delivered and we had your back when you needed us. That’s why we won big.”
