- Ron DeSantis dismissed rumours of tensions with Trump on the Ruthless podcast.
- Trump recently took a shot at "gutless" politicians over booster shots, a possible slight at DeSantis.
- "I think this is what the media does," DeSantis replied. "You cannot fall for the bait."
Gov. Ron DeSantis dismissed reports of tensions with former President Donald Trump in a live interview with the popular Ruthless podcast taped in St. Petersburg, Florida on Friday.
One of the show's hosts told DeSantis, who's widely viewed as a likely 2024 presidential contender, that the media is "trying to drive a wedge between you and one of your constituents here in Florida, former President Trump."
"Is there any sort of animosity? What's that relationship like?…I want to know what that dynamic is like," he asked the governor.
"I think this is what the media does," DeSantis replied. "You cannot fall for the bait..you know what they're trying to do, so just don't take it. Just keep on keeping on. We need everybody united for a big red wave in 2022. We've gotta fight the left, and not only fight, but beat the left. And that's what we're doing in Florida."
Trump, who's recently stepped up his advocacy for COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters, called out "gutless" unnamed politicians for refusing to reveal their booster status in an interview with conservative network One America News this week.
"Many politicians — I watched a couple of politicians be interviewed, and one of the questions was, 'Did you get the booster?' because they had the vaccine. And they're all answering it like — in other words, the answer is yes, but they don't want to say it because they're gutless," Trump told OAN's Dan Ball.
"You gotta say it. Whether you had it or not, say it," Trump added.
Trump didn't call out DeSantis by name. But the Florida governor declined to state whether he had recieved a booster shot in a December interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo.
"So, I've done whatever I did...the normal shot, and that at the end of the day is people's individual decisions about what they want to do," DeSantis said when asked if he'd gotten a booster, emphasizing that Florida had banned private employers from requiring vaccination for employees or patrons.
But Trump has publicly flip-flopped on boosters over the last few months. He dismissed booster shots in August as a "money-making operation" for pharmaceutical giants and in September said he likely wouldn't receive a third shot. The former president revealed he'd received his booster shot to boos from his fans during an event with former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly last month.
The New York Times' Maggie Haberman recently reported that DeSantis is getting "increasingly under Trump's skin" and the former president "has been telling a range of aides a version of, he isn't getting the deference from DeSantis that he wants in the pre-2024 leadup."
—Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 12, 2022
"Trump could always decide not to run but every indication is he will. And once again he's moving to set the terms of engagement with his potential rivals while those rivals are mostly averting their gazes and hoping he goes away," Haberman tweeted. "And so if DeSantis or Pence or whomever runs they're gonna have to make a real choice at some point about whether they want to have a cage match every day with someone who enjoys it in a way that 75 percent of the political world doesn't."