Lara Trump has begged “very smart” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to delay his expected White House run to give her father-in-law, former President Donald Trump, a clear shot at the Republican nomination in 2024.
Eric Trump’s wife, now a Fox News contributor, said it would be “nicer” for DeSantis to wait until 2028 while seemingly conceding that, as The Post declared on its Nov. 9 front page, the Florida governor is “DeFuture” of the GOP.
“I think that Ron DeSantis is very smart,” Lara Trump told Sky News Australia on Sunday.
“Look, he’s a young guy. There will be a lot of opportunity for him in the future … to run for president,” she added of the 44-year-old governor, who was re-elected in a landside to a second four-year term as the Sunshine State’s leader.
“And I think he’s a smart enough guy to know that it would be great to have all the support of this party, of the America First, MAGA movement — whatever you want to call it — fully behind him in 2028 than possibly has, you know, fracturing it in 2024,” Lara Trump continued.
As well as giving the 76-year-old Donald Trump an easier run, it would prevent the former president from having to resort to his usual vicious tactics, she suggested.
“I can tell you those primaries get very messy and very raw. We’ve experienced that before,” Lara Trump said, days after her father-in-law publicly lost his cool at his likely challenger.
“So wouldn’t it be nicer for [DeSantis] — and I think he knows this — to wait until 2028?” she said.
Lara Trump also suggested that without DeSantis in the contest, her father-in-law would likely have an easy run to the nomination, laughing off suggestions that he was losing support from Republicans blaming him for disastrous results in the midterms.
She insisted it was no different from party bigwigs initially opposing Trump in 2016 before rallying behind him once it became clear he would be the nominee.
“They know that he has what it takes not only to win the White House, but to do incredible things for this country,” she said.
“So yes, absolutely, I think the party would be behind him and I think that they know that the American people, by and large, are behind him,” she suggested.
While giving her predictions, Lara Trump also teased her father-in-law’s expected announcement at an event in Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday that he is running in 2024.
“I hope it’s a very historic event, if indeed he does decide to run again and that’s the announcement we hear on Tuesday,” she said.
Reporting from the New York Post.
