The night began and ended with technical difficulties.
Ron DeSantis declared his presidential candidacy during a Twitter livestream with Elon Musk that.
The night began and ended with technical difficulties.
Ron DeSantis declared his presidential candidacy during a Twitter livestream with Elon Musk that repeatedly crashed, delaying his long-expected announcement and marring his introduction to a national audience.
Another interview later in the evening, this one with conservative radio host Mark Levin, was punctuated by more awkward silences as the Florida governor’s phone line cut in and out.
And yet, while the system bugs were ugly, the money was anything but. The DeSantis campaign announced it had raised a million dollars in the first hour of his candidacy. And if the rollout was less than smooth, DeSantis still managed to preview his policy resume at length. “He literally busted up the Internet,” a spokesman crowed at the end of the night. “Washington is next.”
DeSantis had hinted at his White House ambitions for months before filing paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to officially jump in the race. The two-term governor now joins a still expanding Republican field where he has been touted as Donald Trump’s most serious challenger, though he trails the frontrunner by 34 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics poll average. Despite that advantage, Trump World sees this onetime acolyte as the primary threat. MAGA Inc., a super PAC supporting the former president, spent more than $15 million to attack DeSantis before he even became a declared candidate.
Allies of DeSantis feel confident, however, that because he weathered those early attacks, the coming primary will be a true contest for the 2024 Republican nomination, not a Trump coronation.
More than 600,000 viewers tuned in to hear DeSantis make his introduction. And then they waited. Musk and fellow investor David Sacks fumbled behind the scenes to make the livestream work as the 2024 hopeful stood by. When the feed picked up almost half an hour later, DeSantis explained he was “running for president to lead our great American comeback,” pitching his work in Florida as a readymade blueprint for national renewal.
“Look, we know our country is going in the wrong direction,” he said, “we see it with our eyes, and we feel it in our bones.” According to DeSantis, his party needs to toughen up, look to the future, and “end the culture of losing that has infected the Republican Party in recent years.” He promised results because, among other reasons, “I don’t care about fanfare.”
It was an implicit critique of Trump for focusing on previous grievances or his own celebrity. DeSantis did not say Trump’s name during the livestream or during a Fox News interview afterwards with former South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy.
Other candidates have generally done the same for fear that hitting Trump could alienate the MAGA base. But DeSantis is less afraid to take a shot. A broadside against the former president just wasn’t his immediate priority. He criticized Trump for the first time as a candidate during a late-night press conference, saying in response to a question from a RealClearPolitics correspondent that his opponent is the candidate of “omnibus” spending bills and “amnesty.
