DeSantis Strikes Back at Trump-McCarthy GOP ‘Establishment’, Says He Wears Their Attacks as ‘Badge of Honor’

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis seemed to welcome Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s critique of him on Monday, declaring that he wore the disapproval of the “DC Establishment” as a “badge of honor.”

In a Sunday interview with Maria Bartiromo, McCarthy predicted that former President Donald Trump would reprise his role atop the Republican ticket in 2024, explaining that “President Trump is stronger today than he was in 2016 or 2020, and there’s a reason why. They saw the policies of what he was able to do with America – putting America first, making our economy stronger.”

He went on to dismiss the idea that DeSantis compared to the former president.

“Look, I served with Ron DeSantis – he’s not at the same level as President Trump by any shape or form,” said McCarthy. “He would not have gotten elected without President Trump’s endorsement.”

In comments made on Monday afternoon, DeSantis seemed to see McCarthy’s disdain as a boon to his campaign.

“Well, look, I would say I mean, I think that if you look at what’s happened with D.C. Republicans, they worked very closely. You know, look, Donald Trump, he supported Kevin McCarthy very strongly for speaker. I don’t think he would have won the speaker vote. Donald Trump was instrumental in him earning that speaker’s gavel. And they worked hand-in-glove, really, throughout his whole presidency,” argued DeSantis.

He continued:

They were on the same team on every major spending bill that came down the pike, and they ended up together, adding $7.8 trillion to our national debt. Never in a four-year period has that much been added than what they did together. And so he said that we’re different. We are different, because in Florida we run budget surpluses. We’ve paid down almost 25% of our state’s debt just since I’ve been governor. All the debt all the way up for all of Florida’s history, we’ve knocked off almost 25% of it. So it’s a much different approach to where we’re doing it right. We have the number one rated economy in the country. We’ve cut taxes, we’ve expanded school choice, and we’ve delivered in a way that has made the state sustainable.

I am not somebody who the D.C. establishment wants to see up there. There’s no question about that, because they know that a lot of things will be changing if I’m there. And look, I would just also point out that we in Florida have a right to expect that they get some stuff done for us like they said they would when they campaigned, because Florida was instrumental in them even having the majority to begin with. This was supposed to be a big red wave in 2022. You had probably the most favorable conditions that Republicans have had in a midterm election since 1946. People were expecting a massive tsunami because inflation was terrible that Biden’s unpopular. All the problems that we’ve seen, nobody’s happy with the direction of the country. And that’s tailor-made for the opposition party to be able to sleep into Washington, D.C.. Instead, the only way the reason they even got the majority is because the governor candidate in New York overperformed and because we delivered a red tsunami in Florida that gave them an extra four seats. That’s the story of the midterm. If you take that out, the Democrats would have held on to the House of Representatives. So Florida did its part. We showed how you can win and we want to see some results as a result of that. But I’m not somebody who’s ever going to be the favored, the favorite of the D.C. establishment. You know what? I wear that as a badge of honor.

Watch above via Ron DeSantis on X.