DeSantis Admits PAC’s ’60 Days to Beat Trump’ Was Not a ‘Very Smart Thing to Do’

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently said he disagrees with Never Back Down chief Jeff Roe’s roughly 2-month-old call for the governor to defeat former President Donald Trump in “the next 60 days,” admitting that it was not a “very smart thing to do.”

The head of the pro-DeSantis Super PAC Never Back Down spoke to donors in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in August, telling them they needed $50 million, with $5 million “just to sustain his Iowa operations,” according to the New York Times.

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The outlet added, “And he said Mr. DeSantis needed to beat Donald J. Trump in ‘the next 60 days’ and separate from all of his other rivals ‘now.'”

But now, two months later, DeSantis has had to address that suggestion, given that time is essentially up. Speaking to reporters in Londonderry, New Hampshire, DeSantis made it clear that Roe is not his adviser, emphasizing that those figures “do what they want to do.”

“I think that that’s fine,” he said before admitting that the 60-day deadline was unwise.

“I don’t think very many people think that that was a very smart thing to do with whatever was going on with that,” DeSantis said, distancing himself from the remarks.

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“I can tell you that had nothing to do with anything I’ve done with any of the debates. We go in and let it rip,” he added.

Trump and his allies, however, have continued to showcase DeSantis’s connections to Roe and his entities. In July, Donald Trump Jr. told Breitbart News that DeSantis’s small-dollar donors were “almost non-existent, making up 15 percent of his take” while pointing out that most of the money from DeSantis’s Super PAC was coming from Jeff Roe entities.

“The billionaire donor class, they don’t align with America First. They’re not with the hard-working blue-collar men and women that my father was fighting for,” Don Jr. said at the time.

Donald Trump Jr.: Never Trump Billionaire Donor Movement Largely Behind DeSantis Bid:

Jack Knudsen / Breitbart News

On Tuesday, Trump’s team shared a black and white video mocking DeSantis, asking the question, “Was all of this worth it, Ron?”

“Was it worth selling your soul to the devil Jeff Roe because you thought you could buy the presidency? He has you on a leash and walks you like a dog. Maybe you’re into that type of stuff,” the caption on the tweet accompanying the video read:

Was all of this worth it, Ron?

Was it worth selling your soul to the devil Jeff Roe because you thought you could buy the presidency?

He has you on a leash and walks you like a dog.

Maybe you're into that type of stuff. pic.twitter.com/t3wz9ZMtPb

— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) October 24, 2023

Despite that, DeSantis has continued on in his campaign, ramping up his criticisms of Trump, asserting that the former president has a “sense of entitlement” and accusing him of being unable to “get off that teleprompter.”

Watch:

This is a different Donald Trump from 2016. pic.twitter.com/ygyFCIsbq2

— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) October 24, 2023

Trump, however, has continued to point to the reality of the polls, which all show him as the runaway frontrunner in the Republican primary race.

“Ron DeSanctimonious has the Poll numbers of a wounded bird falling from the sky. I am up on him by 57 points, and going higher,” Trump wrote on Truth Social this month, predicting the Florida governor will “SOON be out of money and dropping out of the race for President.”