Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is blaming the media for falling behind former President Donald Trump in the polls for the 2024 GOP nomination.
On Monday, CNN’s Anderson Cooper attempted to pick apart the excuse.
DeSantis “almost exclusively appears on friendly conservative outlets” like Fox News and polling suggests “it’s actually a plurality of Republican voters” ditching him, said a confused Cooper.
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), now a commentator for CNN, said DeSantis was taking a page from the Trump playbook.
“Never ever accept blame for anything,” he said, calling the media “an easy target” and arguing it was “actually DeSantis’ fault” with his decision to “try to be a younger version of Trump” while Trump is still running.
“Look, it’s kind of sad,” CNN commentator Van Jones said later in the discussion in a video shared online by Mediaite.
The establishment media was “jumping up and down” with “breathless” coverage before DeSantis launched his campaign with the possibility that he’d beat Trump for the nomination.
“I thought that was kind of weird since I thought DeSantis was probably worse than Trump,” Jones continued. “But. I mean, he got the biggest build-up, the biggest support. It was nuts. It was ‘DeSantismania’ for months and months.”
DeSantis’ campaign launch fizzled out though and he’s refusing to change his own “dumb” strategy, said Jones.
