DeSantis to skip White House meeting with governors
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Ron DeSantis SNUBS Biden: Florida Republican skips White House meeting with governors, after he vowed to keep ‘fighting Joe’ and the president went after him for failing to expand Medicaid
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis skipped the National Governors Association winter meeting, which would have landed him twice in the White House.
- DeSantis’ snub comes a day after Biden visited Tampa, Florida, and criticized the Republican governor for not expanding Medicaid in his state.
- DeSantis, a potential 2024 Republican candidate, said Wednesday that he spends his time “fighting Joe Biden.”
- The Florida Republican was being slapped around by former President Donald Trump, who sees him as a threat to win the 2024 Republican nomination.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has skipped the National Governors Association winter meeting, which would have put him face-to-face with President Joe Biden at the White House on Friday and Saturday.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris hosted a mid-morning welcome reception for the nation’s governors on Friday, and the president and first lady hosted a gala dinner for the governors on Saturday.
Several Republicans attended, including New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, but notably DeSantis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was tasked with responding to Biden’s State of the Union, all approved.
DeSantis’ snub comes a day after Biden visited Tampa, Florida, and criticized the Republican governor, and potential 2024 presidential hopeful, by name for his refusal to expand Medicaid in the Sunshine State.
“Over 1.1 million people in Florida would be eligible for Medicaid if Governor DeSantis simply said, ‘I’m okay with expanding it,'” Biden said. This is not calculus.
President Joe Biden (left) hosted most of the nation’s governors at the White House Friday as part of the National Governors Association Winter Meeting, but Florida Ron DeSantis (right) was missing from the list.
The Democratic and Republican governors sat at a rectangular table in the East Room of the White House on Friday for a noon meeting. They will return to the White House on Saturday for a gala dinner.
Earlier this week, DeSantis characterized Biden as his number one target after receiving fresh attacks from former President Donald Trump, who announced he would run for president in 2024 in November.
“I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting Joe Biden. This is how I spend my time,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Ocala, Florida. “I don’t spend my time trying to smear other Republicans.”
DeSantis has not announced a presidential run.
On Tuesday, Trump shared a photo on his Truth Social website that claimed to show a DeSantis in his 20s partying with teenagers.
It’s supposedly from when DeSantis was teaching at Darlington, a private boarding school in Rome, Georgia, in 2001.
“Here’s Ron DeSanctimonious preparing high school girls with alcohol as a teacher,” wrote Truth Social user Dong-Chan Lee.
Trump ‘reformed’ the post, writing: ‘That’s not Ron, is it? He would never do such a thing!
It’s clear from the attention Trump is giving him, the former president sees the Florida governor as the biggest threat standing in the way of him winning the Republican nomination again.
On Thursday, Biden met with Trump and DeSantis with ambivalence.
Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer at Friday’s National Governors Association event in the East Room of the White House.
Republican Idaho Gov. Brad Little (left) was seated next to Democratic Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek (right).
“I have no idea,” the president responded when Julio Vaqueiro of Noticias Telemundo asked him if there was any difference between running against Trump or DeSantis.
‘Not seriously. I have no idea,” Biden said.
Vaqueiro specified then if the president thought there would be a difference “in terms of polarization.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Biden replied. ‘Because I think they have a similar modus operandi, a similar way that they work.’
Biden confirmed that he had yet to make a decision on whether to run for president again, but played down polls that suggested the 80-year-old commander-in-chief was too old.
‘Look, do you know of any polls that are accurate these days?’ Biden said.