Former President Donald Trump says it is “highly unlikely” that Ron DeSantis will serve a role in his administration if elected in 2024 after the Florida governor departed the Republican presidential primary on Sunday.
“It’s probably unlikely but you know, I have to be honest, everything is a possibility, but I think it’s highly unlikely,” Trump, 77, told Fox News’ Lawrence Jones in an interview that aired Monday morning.
“I have a lot of great people. And I have great people that have been with me right from the beginning,” he said, noting that he still appreciated DeSantis’ endorsement.
Trump later told reporters on Sunday that he had “officially retired” his nickname for the Florida governor: “Ron DeSanctimonious.”
DeSantis, 45, won re-election in the Sunshine State by a 19-point margin in November 2022. His second term ends in January 2027.
The former president also said he doesn’t “see a path” for his rival in Tuesday’s New Hampshire GOP primary, Nikki Haley, 51, who is challenging him after having served as US ambassador to the United Nations in his administration.
“I would say with Nikki I haven’t done anything. I’m very upset with her,” Trump added. “She worked for me, like two and a half years. She was okay. Not great. She was okay. She said to everybody, in fact, when she left, I would never run against the president.”
The Haley campaign last week put out a video compilation of her former boss showering her with praise while she served in that role.
Trump registered a double-digit lead over Haley in a pair of Sunday polls — but experts who spoke with The Post stressed that could shrink with high Independent voter turnout for the Granite State primary contest.
A CNN/University of New Hampshire survey found the ex-president in the lead with 50% support and Haley at 39%.
A Suffolk University/NBC10 Boston/Boston Globe poll showed Trump with a slightly higher 55% lead, compared with 36% for Haley.
New Hampshire’s more than 344,000 Independent voters outnumber registered Democrats and Republicans in the state and may vote in either party’s primary, making Trump’s path to victory more difficult.
“I know that the DeSantis voters — they love America, and they wanted a new generational leader,” Haley told Fox News in a Monday morning interview, positioning herself as the best candidate to absorb the governor’s supporters.
DeSantis suspended his campaign with a video announcement, saying: “It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance.”
“Trump is superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden. That is clear. I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee and I will honor that pledge,” DeSantis added, before pivoting to attack his former primary opponent.
“He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear — a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism — that Nikki Haley represents.”
Trump is appearing in Manhattan federal court on Monday to assess damages for E. Jean Carroll, a magazine writer who won a civil suit against him last year for defaming her in 2022 and sexually abusing her in the 1990s.
He will return to New Hampshire for a rally tonight in Laconia.
