‘What Happened?!’ Fox’s Maria Bartiromo Confronts Ron DeSantis On His ‘Failure to Launch’ in Blunt Exchange

Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo was blunt in confronting Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) about his campaign’s early struggles.

In an interview on Sunday Morning Futures, Bartiromo referenced a Politico Playbook item on Saturday titled “failure to launch” — which included an internal assessment from a leading DeSantis surrogate, who admitted “we are way behind” in the polls.

“What’s going on with your campaign?” Bartiromo said. “There was a lot of optimism about you running for president earlier in the year. … What happened?!”

DeSantis responded with something of a nervous laugh while dismissing the premise that his campaign is off to a bad start.

“Maria, These are narratives,” DeSantis said. “The media does not want me to be the nominee. I think that’s very, very clear. Why? Because they know I’ll beat [President Joe] Biden. But even more importantly, they know I will actually deliver on all these things,” the governor added — rattling off various policy initiatives.

The governor went on to say that he expected he would be in for a fight.

“I never expected to just snap fingers and all of a sudden, you know, you win seven months before anyone happens (sic),” he said. “You got to earn it and you got to work. And it requires a lot of toil and tears and sweat. And we’re going to do that.”

Bartiromo then cited a recent Fox News poll which showed DeSantis trailing former President Donald Trump by 34 points. She closed out the interview by asking whether he plans to participate in the Aug. 23 debate — an event for which the former president has signaled he may not show.

“Of course, I look forward to doing it,” DeSantis said. “I think really, Maria, that’s when people are really going to start paying attention to the primary. I think up to this point, a lot of that has been about some of these legal cases. And I think a lot of the voters concern about that and understandably so.”

DeSantis, though, believes the focus of the voters will shift to policy matters by the time the debate rolls around

“We’re going to be able to talk about the vision, and I look forward to doing it,” DeSantis said. “So I’m glad we’re going to get started.”

Watch above, via Fox News.