Laughing all the way to the White House? Florida Governor DeSantis will join 2024 presidential race NEXT WEEK as footage emerges of him laughing maniacally (before SUDDENLY stopping!)
- Paperwork set to be filed on May 25 with U.S. election authorities
- DeSantis trails Donald Trump in most nationwide polls for the GOP primary
- He rose to prominence fighting Covid restrictions and his ‘war on woke’
Would-be presidential candidate Ron DeSantis will formally enter the 2024 race for the White House next, the Reuters news agency reported.
Citing two sources close to the Governor of Florida, the report said the 44-year-old will file the necessary paperwork to run with US election authorities on May 25.
It takes place at the same time as a Miami fundraising event for the ex-Congressman where donors are set to be put to ‘work’.
The Republican lawmaker has become ex-president Donald Trump’s biggest rival for the GOP nomination; both men were one-time allies during Trump’s spell in the White House.
Reuters, citing sources, said a formal campaign launch will take place the week starting May 29 at an as-yet undisclosed location.Trump has lashed out at DeSantis in recent weeks, branding him with one of his infamous derogatory nicknames – ‘Ron Desanctimonious’.
It comes as a video of DeSantis roaring with laughter emerged online, as the 2024 hopeful makes an apparent effort to loosen up.
The video, which first aired on C-Span, shows the governor engaged in a conversation with a man at a classic car show in Iowa on May 13.
DeSantis, who at times appears not to be at ease talking to voters, asks: ‘I saw that you have like a 1955 Porsche in there. That one’s nice. How much is that worth?’
‘Ugh, we won’t even talk about that,’ the man responds. DeSantis was clearly tickled by the remark and flung his head back to give a hearty-open-mouthed guffaw.
The video, which first aired on C-Span, shows the hotly-debated Republican engaged in a conversation with a man who cracks a joke that sent the governor into stitches
He will need to turn around a widening gulf in the opinion polls, with many voter surveys showing the ex-commander-in-chief as the runaway favorite to win the Republican primary.
The Sunshine State governor had said he planned to stay out of the presidential race until the latest session of the Florida legislature had been completed.
A U.S. Navy veteran, DeSantis rose to prominence nationwide due to his staunch opposition to Covid-era restrictions.
He has also fought a so-called ‘War on Woke’, attacking Disney for criticizing his ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law that banned LGBT education in schools.
The owner of the famous Walt Disney World resort in Orlando has filed a lawsuit against DeSantis after state officials pulled the plug on a development deal at the theme park.
Florida lawmakers then voted to restructure the special district that had been created around Disney World.
It handed DeSantis the power to appoint members to the district’s governing board that the movie giant says amounts to illegal state interference in its business affairs.
Ex-president Trump said his possible presidential had been ‘outplayed, outsmarted, and embarrassed by Mickey Mouse’.
DeSantis has also signed new laws on capital punishment, banning transgender therapy for minors and abortion in a bid to outflank Trump on the right.
Florida now bans pregnant women from accessing termination after six weeks, a move that Trump himself criticized as too harsh.
DeSantis was re-elected as governor just last year, trouncing his Democratic opponent by nearly 20 percentage points.
While he is now way behind the 76-year-old real estate mogul, DeSantis initially beat out Trump in the first GOP primary polls last year.
The winner of any Republican primary would almost certainly go up against incumbent Joe Biden.
Only no-hopers Robert F Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, and self-help author Marianne Williamson have declared an intention to stand in the Democratic primaries.