Former President Donald Trump is displaying his “sense of entitlement” by deciding to not participate in the 2024 GOP presidential primary debates, according to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Trump announced in a Truth Social post on Sunday that he would “not be doing” any of the Republican debates, while boasting that “the public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had.” The former president previously indicated that he would be skipping the first debate, which is set to take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Wednesday.
The decision to skip the debates quickly drew condemnation from Trump critics and some rival GOP 2024 presidential candidates. Trump’s former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany suggested that the move could be an election “miscalculation” by the ex-president, regardless of his clear front-runner status.
DeSantis, who has been walking a political tightrope by attempting to appeal to the right wing of the Republican Party while avoiding causing offense to Trump’s MAGA base, suggested that GOP voters would not “look kindly” on the former president’s decision during a Fox News interview on Monday.
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“I think [Trump] has a great opportunity to come out and do this,” DeSantis said. “I think he owes it to people. I don’t think our voters, even people that appreciate what he did—and I’m actually one that appreciated a lot of what he did, too—I don’t think they’re going to look kindly on somebody that thinks they don’t have to earn it.”
“I mean, I was a blue-collar kid,” he continued. “I didn’t have anything handing to me. But I believed in America, if you work hard, you can get ahead. That’s what we should be showing people. We shouldn’t be displaying a sense of entitlement.”
Newsweek reached out for comment to Trump’s office via email on Monday night.
DeSantis, who is in a distant second-place to Trump in most polls, has been relentlessly attacked by the former president and his allies since it became clear that the Florida governor would also be a candidate in the 2024 election. Trump frequently refers to DeSantis with derogatory nicknames like “Ron DeSanctimonious” or “DeSanctus.”
Trump’s decision to decline to participate in the debates comes amid mounting legal troubles that have so far this year included four felony indictments; two federal and two state. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges on which he has been arraigned and claims to be the victim of a political “witch hunt” and “election interference.”
Thomas Gift, founding director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, previously told Newsweek that Trump opting out of the debates was sending a message to GOP voters that they “have no choice” because he is the “inevitable candidate.”
“If four indictments in the last several months did nothing to damage Trump’s poll numbers, a no-show at debate certainly won’t,” Gift said.
However, some conservatives have warned that the decision could backfire by giving President Joe Biden a reason to skip debating Trump and depriving the former president of a chance to potentially win over independent voters in the general election.