Former President Donald Trump’s longtime ally and “dirty trickster” political operative Roger Stone warned Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that it would be “treachery” to run against Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Stone insisted in his post on the right-wing Telegram social media platform that Trump has made “every indication that he’s running for president in 2024” — even though he’s made no such announcement.
If DeSantis launches a bid against Trump to be the Republican candidate, it would be the “most stunning act of ingratitude and treachery in the history of American politics,” Stone said in his post.
He insisted Trump’s endorsement of DeSantis in his race to become Florida governor in 2019 “MADE Ron DeSanctimonius Governor.” Stone ended his message with the hashtag “ingrate.”
Stone threatened DeSantis late last year that if he refused to promise to serve out another term as governor and not run for president in 2024, Stone would challenge him in a gubernatorial campaign.
DeSantis refused on Monday to commit to serving a full four-year term if reelected when he was pressed in a debate by Democratic rival Charlie Crist. It’s too late now for Stone to launch a gubernatorial campaign; the race will be decided Nov. 8.
Despite his invective about DeSantis, it can be difficult to track Stone’s loyalties from moment to moment. He has been captured on videotape viciously attacking Trump on Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day after Stone failed to win a preemptive pardon from the former president for his activities linked to last year’s U.S. Capitol riot. (He also blasted daughter Ivanka Trump as an “abortionist bitch.”)
He also called Trump the “greatest single mistake in American history” for “betraying” insurrectionists in footage released by a Danish documentary, “A Storm Foretold.” He said in a conversation to an unknown person on his cellphone that Trump “has to go. Run again! You’ll get your fucking brains beat in,” Stone added on tape, imagining what he would say to Trump.
For now, however, Stone is trying to clear the field of potential rivals in the event Trump announces a run for the presidency. Trump is doing the same, also using a disloyalty attack. He said in a Fox radio interview last week that a race against him by former Vice President Mike Pence — or any other member of his Cabinet — would be “very disloyal.”
Trump is holding a rally in Miami two days before the midterm elections next month and so far hasn’t invited DeSantis.