A grand jury in Manhattan charged former president Donald Trump on many charges, and California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, took aim at Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, calling him “weak” for his response.
Newsom said that recent things DeSantis has said, like saying that Democrats are using the court system as a tool, do not paint a good picture of the Florida governor.
On the MSNBC show Inside with Jen Psaki, Newsom said, “He just looked weak, like weakness was trying to look like strength.”
The governor of California also said that DeSantis should “wait a few years” and focus on running Florida before thinking about running against Trump in the Republican primary in 2024.
Trump will beat him badly. Trump is about to beat him up pretty hard. I would tell him to wait it out if I had to give him political advice. And, as Newsom said, “do some of the hard work,” which means actually running the government and not just fighting over identity and culture.
Newsom went on to list other ways that DeSantis could do a better job as governor. He said that the high cost of living in the state was one of them.
“Come back as a smarter, more skilled boss with a little bit of humility. And he could use a little of that, said Newsom.
Newsom has spoken out against DeSantis, who could run for president as a Republican in 2024.
In July 2022, Newsom ran ads in Florida that were critical of DeSantis and encouraged Floridians to move to California, which he said was the only place “where we still believe in freedom.”
In a letter to the Justice Department from September 2022, Newsom asked that the states of Florida and Texas be punished for illegally transporting immigrants to leftist strongholds like New York City and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. DeSantis joked that Newsom’s hair gel was making it hard for his brain to work.
Newsom was in Florida on Thursday for a visit to the New College of Florida, where he yelled about book bans and other things.
Psaki said that the California governor was rejecting rumors that he planned to run for president in 2024 because of his new “Campaign for Democracy” group.