There is one way to judge a Presidential candidate for 2024, what did they do during the pandemic 2020. Trump in his first three years did a decent job of being President and while he had many accomplishments in foreign policy and his judicial appointments, he failed big time during the Pandemic. As stated, Trump federalist approach worked in that those governors who followed the science, open early.
Trump failure was allowing Fauci and Birks to run the operation and we should not forget Trump attacked Brian Kemp when he opened his economy at the end of April 2020 but now, he is saying Kemp did a good job. He continues to lie about DeSantis record, and he did little to change course He can claim that he did not listen to Fauci but the reality Birks and Fauci ran the show.
Trump did bring in Scott Atlas, who was a leading skeptic to offer a different view and Atlas does make the point in his book, “A Plague Upon Our House” that Trump was skeptical of the lockdown, but he also makes clear that it was Birks and Fauci who controlled the policies. He tells the story that Trump did meet with the leaders of the Great Barrington Declaration, but behind closed doors and Atlas was not given power to make changes.
Trump had not admitted no mistakes in his handling of the Covid and that is a problem. I will add I have yet to hear if Mike Pence has any regrets. If you want to make the argument that DeSantis joined others in closing his state in the beginning based on Fauci/Birks/Trump recommendation, but he moved away from this and by the time the fall came, Florida was open along with other Republican states. Kemp and Noem opened first before DeSantis, but DeSantis did open and while Trump met with Great Barrington Declaration behind close doors, DeSantis did it openly.
DeSantis admitted that he should have opened earlier, and Trump will not admit any mistakes. Voters must ask themselves do they want a candidate who understood early that he needed to change course or if the candidate at a crucial part of history fails to change course.
The Donelson Files 