Earlier this month, we learned that despite effectively moving into Mar-a-Lago to pitch herself as Donald Trump’s VP, Kari Lake’s desire for the spotlight had apparently backfired and turned off the attention-loving ex-president, leaving her odds of being added to the 2024 ticket in the toilet. Another person who is unlikely to serve as the former guy‘s running mate, but for very different reasons? Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
In an interview on Tuesday with the Wisconsin Right Now radio show, DeSantis said he would reject a theoretical offer to run as Trump’s VP in a general election. “I don’t think so. I’m not a number two guy,” DeSantis said, claiming that he would rather continue serving as governor than become vice president because the latter role “doesn’t really have any authority.” (That, of course, is true; when you’re vice president, you don’t get to do things like ban millions of people from saying the word gay.) Quizzed about whom he would choose as a running mate in the event he won the GOP nomination, DeSantis, whose own allies have said his polling numbers are in the gutter, responded, “It’s a little bit presumptuous to be doing that at this stage. I’m here to win the early primaries, and that’s what we’ve got to do first.”
Of course, it’s not hard to see why the governor would be less than jazzed about the idea of serving as Trump‘s number two, given that Trump has:
Responding to DeSantis’s rejection of Trump’s potential veep offer, a spokesman for the ex-president told NBC News, “Ron DeSantis isn’t anybody’s guy. He’s not ‘the guy.’ He’s just ‘a guy.’ Ron is just there, sullen and sad, because his numbers are as tiny as him.”