expected to give the former president his toughest primary challenge of 2024 makes it official. florida s governor ron desantis getting into the race, taking on his fellow floridian, launching in a streaming event with elon musk on twitter. trump used it to pummel the republican field, including marco rubio and jeb bush who he turned into a campaign punching bag. in a moment, randi kaye looks into whether desantis will do better. first, the political waters he is about to jump into. in one way they may appear promising for a republican candidate. the current president s job approval now stands at 40%. new polling out late today shows this. with the debt ceiling crisis coming to a head, that poll shows 34% approve of the way the president is handling the economy. desantis enters a large and growing field. five more are known to be weighing a run, including pence and sununu and chris christie and youngkin. it s the large field that some experts say will favor the former preside
good evening. tomorrow, the man who many expected to give the former president s toughest primary challenge of 2024 makes it official. florida s governor, ron desantis, getting into the race, taking on his fellow floridian, launching the campaign in a streaming event with elon musk on twitter. his opponent s former favorite megaphone. which he used in 2016, of course, to pummel the rest of the republican field, including former florida senator, marco rubio, and floor jeb bush, who you turn first into a verbal punching bag, then a campaign punchline, and finally, a political footnote. in a moment randi kaye looks ahead to whether governor desantis will do any better against those kind of tactics. first, the kind of political waters he is about to jump into. in one way, they may appear promising for a republican candidate. the current president s job approval, now stands at 40%. a new cnn polling out late today. and with the debt ceiling crisis coming to a head, that same p
Been asked, you know, did vice president pence do the right thing and there was a moment as though it seemed that vice president pence thought governor desantis was not giving an answer on the question and governor desantis pushed by the vice president said something like i have no beef with mike or what mike did. what did you make of that? listen, ron desantis did not distinguish himself as a leader last night. whether it was to dave s point, you know, looking around to see who raised their hand or that moment. the moderators had to step in and say just answer the question. i think that resonated with a lot of folks who were trying to see is this somebody who could achieve front-runner or even number two status? he s just not there. i worked with governor desantis in the house. he s got some skills. but this is not a guy who s going to be the savior of the gop if you re looking for someone to take on donald trump. david go ahead. i was just going to say if you compare and cont
Done all the things that the conservative agenda is looking for. he said trump would be a drag on the ticket. he would hurt the candidates up and down the ballot and that he would struggle in many of the battleground states that he failed in in 2020. those conversations are being had in part because donors and operatives are worried that desantis is not ready and isn t clear-eyed for the challenge of taking on trump. when i talk to people close to his campaign, they say that they believe that they are being underestimated and they are confident that this race will not begin until he enters this week. appreciate it. thank you. joining us is former illinois republican congressman adam kinzinger who served with desantis in the house. also cnn political analyst margaret tala. is it smart for desantis to announce this way, in this conversation on twitter with elon musk? it s unique. you know what was interesting is i just learned in that report
Until he enters this week. appreciate, it thank you. joining us, cnn s senior political commentator and former illinois republican congressman, adam kinzinger, who served with desantis in the house. also cnn political analyst and axios managing editor, congressman, is it smart for desantis to announce this way in his conversation on twitter with elon musk? it is unique, but you know what was interesting? i just learned in that report that david sachs is going to be the one moderating it. he s anti-ukraine. i mean, i ve seen a lot of his comments where it s almost sympathetic to russia. you know, the ukrainians have provoked russia. and that was one of the early things that really hit desantis, that kind of brought him down from being a competitor with trump, is when he came out and he actually was hedging on the russian war. so, i don t really understand this kind of, who is there to moderate. but certainly, he will probably get a little more attention this way than he would ve