Trump: If DeSantis Runs in 2024, 'I’d Beat Him like I’d Beat Everyone Else'
45h POTUS says he doesn't think Florida governor will run against him
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President Donald Trump has responded to questions regarding his possible competition for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
During a Monday interview with Yahoo Finance Live, Trump said that he does not think Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis will run against him in 2024.
However, if DeSantis did choose to run, Trump says he'd beat him.
“If I faced him, I’d beat him like I would beat everyone else,” Trump told the outlet.
“I think that most people would drop out, I think he would drop out.”
Trump has consistently teased a third presidential bid in 2024.
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Recent polls showed Trump leading the field, often with DeSantis, a rising star in th Republican Party, in second place.
In July, a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) straw poll showed Trump with nearly 80% support and DeSantis at 21%.
According to the CPAC poll, however, DeSantis polled at 68% without Trump in the race.
DeSantis has repeatedly said that he is not thinking about a presidential bid.
Last Thursday, he even told Fox News's Sean Hannity that he was “not considering anything beyond doing my job.”
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The popular first-term governor has said he is running for re-election in 2022, and he faces several high-profile Democratic challengers.
Trump said in July that he had already decided his 2024 plans, though he refused to explicitly say he was running.
He and his political action committee have also been consistently fundraising, and Trump has said that he wants to wield his influence among GOP voters ahead of the 2022 midterms.
Though polls show Trump as the early Republican frontrunner, they also show that he would not win easily against Democrat Joe Biden.
One Quinnipiac University poll from August showed that 60% of Americans thought another Trump candidacy would be bad for the country, almost double the 32% who said that it would be good.
