Florida Governor Ron DeSantis headlined the closing session of a leadership summit organized by the Heritage Foundation Friday. The packed room of more than 1,000 attendees heard warnings from the popular two-term governor that the “left is playing for keeps.” Republicans must win in 2024.

“If you look at what happens in 2024 — if the Democrats are able to sweep all the offices, president, Senate, and House — what will they do with that power? They will try to pack the U.S. Supreme Court. They will try to abolish the Electoral College. They will try to make Washington, D.C., a state, so they get two left-wing senators, virtually for life, and they will try to eliminate voter ID across this country and mandate ballot harvesting in every state of the union,” DeSantis argued.

The governor charged that “that’s not an agenda that’s speaking to the aspirations of the average American. It’s an agenda that a political movement is pursuing to try and block the conservative half of the country out of power, to try to keep our voices from being heard.’’

At first glance that may look like hyperbole spoken by a man who will soon officially be running for president. However, everything he referenced is something the progressive left has openly said it wants to accomplish. None of those agenda items are good for America. As he spoke to the leadership summit at the convention hall in National Harbor in Maryland, DeSantis didn’t reference his own 2024 plans. He did repeat some often-used lines, such as “freedom is worth fighting for” and “we have only begun to fight.” Standard throwaway lines are like red meat to enthusiastic supporters.

Don’t believe the hype that DeSantis isn’t good with crowds and doesn’t have good retail politics skills. He’s a two-term governor of Florida, a large state with a diverse population. His victory in his reelection was considerably larger than his victory when he won his first term as governor. Floridians like him and he must be doing something right. After his speech Friday, he was able to stay and mingle with the audience taking selfies and answering questions.

He continues to do the things that someone running for president does. Those things include beefing up staff in Tallahassee. And he’s made campaign-style stops in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina in recent weeks. These are the first three states to vote in the GOP presidential nominating calendar. Remember, Democrats changed their first primary to South Carolina so that Joe Biden has a chance of winning the first state primary in South Carolina. He doesn’t do well in Iowa caucuses or the first state primary in New Hampshire. Last time around, in 2020, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) had to intervene to save Biden’s campaign. Once a D student, always a D student.

There is plenty of time before anyone should be writing off DeSantis in the GOP primary, especially since he has not officially entered it. There is a lot of nervousness out there among Trump supporters but don’t let them frighten you DeSantis supporters. While DeSantis was speaking at the Heritage Foundation leadership summit, Trump was making petty schoolboy criticisms of DeSantis. He referred to DeSantis as ‘Rocket Man‘, as he did with Kim Jong-un.

While speaking with the NELK Boys on Thursday, Trump again mentioned his relationship with “Little Rocket Man” when asked about his experiences with Kim, telling the Canadian podcast team that the North Korean leader is “very smart, and he’s very cunning, and he’s very ruthless.”

“But I got to know him very well,” Trump said. “And I think we would have had nuclear war, had Obama been able to stay or had crooked Hillary Clinton become president, you would have had a nuclear war with North Korea.”

Later in the conversation, Trump reassigned the nickname to DeSantis, who has been the target of many of the former president’s verbal jabs heading into the 2024 presidential election. Although DeSantis has yet to formally announce his candidacy, he is touted to be Trump’s biggest potential rival for the GOP nomination in the next election cycle.

During Thursday’s interview, Trump was asked if he thought his “biggest competition” in his reelection campaign could come from within the Republican Party. The former president said yes, “but they’re really fading fast.”

“You have a guy from Florida, Ron DeSantis, who I got in with my endorsement,” Trump said.

“He was dead politically,” the former president said later in the conversation. “I endorsed him and saved him … he was losing by like 25, 30 points very shortly before the election. When I endorsed him, he went like a rocket ship.”

“I should call him ‘Rocket Man,'” Trump joked with the podcast hosts. “But now he’s ‘Rocket Man’ that’s crashing. His polls are terrible. I’m leading him in every state.”

That’s Trump reminding people why they don’t like him, especially the all-important independent voters and suburban voters. Trump is incapable of expanding his base at this point and that is why he will not win against Joe Biden, as horrible and unpopular as Biden is. Calling DeSantis the same derogatory nickname as the North Korean dictator and to Canadians is unnecessary lowball politics. DeSantis isn’t even in the race and Trump can’t handle the competition. Sad.

DeSantis wisely refers to Tump’s juvenile behavior as “background noise.”

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.introduced DeSantis as “America’s Governor” before his speech at the foundation’s 50th-anniversary celebration. DeSantis is going with his timeline. Depending if he decides to enter the primary race, which all indications point that he will, we’ll see if he made the right decision to let Trump’s attacks go unanswered during this time. I think he has time to make it all right. Republicans are eager to win this time. We’ll see if Trump can convince them that he is the one to do it after a losing streak that soured a lot of voters.

.