MSNBC host Joe Scarborough compared Gov. Ron DeSantis to former President Barack Obama while discussing a potential matchup between the Florida governor and Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican primary.
Former Obama campaign adviser and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs joined Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski to discuss the potential matchup. He said that much like Obama, we won't know the "type of candidate" DeSantis will be until he's out on the national stage.
"Boy, he’s a perfect example. I will say, he is a perfect – I mean, you can line him up with Ron DeSantis in this respect, you don’t know how DeSantis in the end is going to do on the national stage. I was very skeptical that a state senator that just got elected to the United States Senate was going to beat the Clinton machine," Scarborough said.
"Sometimes it's lightning in a bottle," he added.
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"One, you point out really correctly that what we don’t know is how somebody is going to perform on the national stage. You know, not a lot different than I think Barack Obama had when he first came out. He’s not going to get a chance to practice off Broadway before the play starts on opening night. So he’s going to be scrutinized from the very beginning," Gibbs said earlier in the discussion.
He added that when he traveled with Obama on the campaign trail, the former president was not very comfortable on a national stage.
"You sort of get the practice and learn it because you have to do it every single day," he said.
Trump announced his plan to run for president in 2024 after the midterm elections in November.
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"When I think of Ron DeSantis, I’m reminded of that really famous Mike Tyson quote, that everybody has a plan until the first time they’re punched in the face," Scarborough also said.
Trump and DeSantis have traded jabs recently as the former president accused DeSantis of being "disloyal" and claimed he wouldn't have been elected governor if it weren't for him.
DeSantis told reporters at a press conference that the people of Florida were able to decide and vote based on his performance as governor.
"And I'm happy to say, you know, in my case, not only did we win reelection, we won with the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican governor candidate has in the history of the state of Florida," DeSantis said during a press conference after he was asked to respond to Trump's comments.
