President Donald Trump is planning to hold a rally in Sarasota, Florida, on July 3rd even though Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has “made a direct plea” to the former president to cancel the event since a search-and-rescue mission is still taking place in Surfside in hopes of finding signs of life at the site of a collapsed seaside condominium, according to the Washington Examiner. As of now, at least 16 people are dead, and 147 others remain unaccounted for after the 12-story condo partially collapsed in South Florida’s Miami-Dade County last week.
According to the outlet, one Florida Republican bluntly said Trump and his team need to “read the room.”
“The governor is getting tested here as to how far he’s going to be pushed before he breaks ranks with President Trump,” the source told the outlet. “And he has to be very careful because this is Trump country. The base loves the president. But they equally love Ron. It’s a showdown going on right now.”
“For now, the Trump camp is holding firm. “Nobody wants to cancel,” a source close to Trump told the outlet.
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“DeSantis, a 42-year-old former Navy officer, is threading a needle, with one eye on Trump and another on his reelection campaign,” the outlet reports.
“He does have to win reelection in 2022,” a former Trump aide said. “He can’t piss off the president. But at the same time, he’s reading the temperature correctly.”
The twice-impeached one-term president hasn’t committed to running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, but he has teased his supporters with the idea. However, DeSantis and Trump might be on a collision course if the former president decides to run. The Florida Governor edged Trump in a straw poll taken at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, and Mike Pence came in 10th out of a 31-person field. DeSantis polled at three percent over the former president.
With Trump ignoring DeSantis’s plea, it can only make matters worse. It wouldn’t be good optics to hold a rally while they are still looking for bodies. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden will travel to Surfside, Florida, on Thursday to visit the site of the deadly condominium tower collapse.
Featured image via White House/Flickr
