Handicapping the Trump-DeSantis Faceoff

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The Great Never Trump Hope is finally throwing his boxing gloves into 2024 presidential ring.  Here’s how the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will try to knock out the greatest counterpuncher in American politics.

DeSantis will first try to claim Trump can’t win.  While Trump decisively beats both Biden and DeSantis in national polls, lookout for DeSantis-friendly pollsters showing DeSantis taking key battlegrounds like Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin; and these misleading polls will be gleefully disseminated by the Never-Trump media – from CNN, MSNBC and Fox to ABC, CBS, and NBC. 

As a counterpunch, Trump will urge all his supporters (particularly disaffected Fox viewers) to move to more MAGA-friendly outlets like Newsmax, which just pushed past CNN in primetime, Real America’s Voice (home to MAGA’s loudest trumpet save Trump in Steve Bannon), and One America’s News.

DeSantis will also try to pose as a MAGA populist – he is already being tutored by a disgruntled ex-Trump staffer.  Trump need not really counterpunch here as his MAGA base knows you can tell a politician by the company he keeps. 

Here, DeSantis has already allied himself with the MAGA-hating, open borders, China-appeasing donors of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the multinational corporations whose bottom lines depend on the offshoring of America jobs and importing of illegal alien labor.   

DeSantis has also received the full-throated backing of the second most hated man in MAGA behind only George Soros.  The Australian globalist Rupert Murdoch has pledged the full force of his Fox News-New York Post empire.  It’s not for nothing DeSantis has fallen in the polls as his globalist backing has been revealed.

DeSantis’ third line of attack may be the strongest card he will play to try to split Trump’s broader Republican and Independent base. DeSantis will position himself as the intrepid Fauci-fighter who rejected “Trump’s lockdowns” and the forced vaccination of what DeSantis will scornfully portray as the “Trump  vaccine.” 

President Trump has already counterpunched with strong opposition to forced vaccinations and anything remotely looking like vaccine passports. Yet, the best counterpunch Trump may ultimately throw is this:   

Even as Trump was moving mountains to successfully deliver what he thought was a true vaccine in record time, the president was being lied to – I know, I was there!

From Tony Fauci at NIH and Deborah Birx in the White House to Bob Redfield at the CDC and Steve Hahn at the FDA, none told President Trump that the so-called “vaccine” they were pedaling wasn’t a true vaccine at all but a potentially dangerous immune system-altering jab.  To sell the hated lockdown to Trump, many of these same advisors vastly over-sold the risks of the pandemic even as Big Pharma hid data that showed the Covid jabs were anything but safe!

Most perniciously, Fauci knew as early as January of 2020 the virus almost certainly came from a Wuhan lab – he himself had funded the gain-of-function research likely used to genetically engineer what is for all practical purposes a Communist Chinese bioweapon.  By withholding that information, Fauci foreclosed on the opportunity to design a true and safe vaccine.  Of course, to put a little extra zip on this counterpunch, Trump will promise to hold Fauci, Pfizer, and the rest of those who deceived not just him, but also the American people, fully accountable.

As to how this plays out, President Trump will relentlessly exploit DeSantis’ lack of foreign policy experience.  The stark contrast between Trump, the gregarious billionaire with the commoner’s touch, and DeSantis, the Nixonian paranoid introvert with weak social skills, will also be a factor.

In one scenario, Trump stumbles and DeSantis, now leading the rest of a weak pack, emerges as winner. Yet, it’s hard to imagine the well-seasoned Trump would take such a tumble.

More likely, DeSantis, and other globalist elite-funded candidates in the race like Nikki Haley, will take whatever pound of flesh they can to weaken Trump; and here’s the dirty little secret of this scenario: Many of DeSantis’ globalist elite “supporters” would be just as happy if the Democrats win.  DeSantis is simply their useful idiot to take out Trump.

In the wildest scenario, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Trump run (separately) as independents after the Uniparty Democrat and Republican National Committees cheat them out of their rightful nominations.  Now, that historic four-way race would be more fun than a barrel of Ross Perots.

Most likely, DeSantis will merely further energize Trump and his MAGA base; and DeSantis will simply serve as a punching bag and foil to keep Trump sharp for the general election. This is most likely because there is really nothing more anyone can say about or do to Donald Trump that hasn’t been said or done yet to take him down.

Meanwhile, buyer’s remorse is already thick in the American air as more and more independents, blue collar Democrats, and even soccer moms are overcoming their Trump phobia.  Juxtaposed against the multiple messes Biden has made on the economy, in Afghanistan and Ukraine, at the border, in our schools and women’s sports, and on the mean streets of our major cities, Trump looks better and better.  

Peter Navarro served in the Trump White House as manufacturing czar and, during the pandemic, as Defense Production Act Policy Coordinator.  Follow Peter at his substack at

where this article originally appeared.