Joe Scarborough: DeSantis Will Back Down from Trump in 2024 to Avoid Getting Chewed Up by the ‘Meat Grinder’
Can Ron DeSantis take a punch? This was the focus as the Morning Joe panel considered the 2024 Republican presidential primary race. Joe Scarborough thinks it probably doesn’t matter, as the Florida Governor sees how former President Donald Trump treats his opponents and will opt to see out his term as governor and instead run in 2028,
The boxing metaphor was apt and started after Al Sharpton shared a story about Mohammed Ali, who, when told a challenger could throw a punch, replied, “but can he take a punch?” The idea here is that no one is better at effectively belittling their opponents than Trump.
Former RNC chair — turned MSNBC pundit — Michael Steele noted that he didn’t see anyone in the Republican party calling for Nikki Haley to run (despite news of her exploring a 2024 bid) and that only the “business class” appeared to be into a DeSantis run, which those in coach don’t seem terribly interested.
Then Scarborough buttoned up the segment quite well, using his own political experience from the Florida panhandle. But first, he doubled down on the boxing metaphor at play.
“Sometimes sports analogies don’t fit tightly. I got to say here; it fits perfectly,” he said. “You get two boxers in a ring. You find out really quickly who the champ is and who the pretender is.” He then compared that to a presidential debate, saying, “You get two people up on the debate stage, and one starts sweating profusely.”
“You know immediately who the pretender is and who the champ is, and the champ goes in, mocks him for sweating, and then jabs, jabs, jabs. He sweats a little bit more and then just goes in for the kill,” he continued. “Trump did that with 16 people in 2016. And, again, I haven’t seen anybody that can get in his face; that’s good enough to get in his face. ”
“I had a good friend of mine, a Republican friend that was at the DeSantis inauguration, and he said business leaders from across the country were flying in,” he continued. “They were lined up as far as you could see to just be in the presence of Ron Desantis. I said, yeah, and a lot of those guys, they were doing the same thing with Jeb Bush in 2015.”
“So we’ll see,” Scarborough concluded, eventually landing the airplane that was his point.
“Maybe Desantis can take a punch. My guess is just all of us talking right now; my guess is Desantis says, ‘wait a second, why do I go to the meat grinder to chew up and spit out 16 Republicans politically? Why don’t I let Trump run again? I’ll serve out my term. I’ll end up with 80% approval ratings among Republicans, and then in ’26, I open my presidential campaign.'”
Watch above via MSNBC.
