The DeSantis Consultant Mind Trap

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Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, MAGA Wednesday Edition, and happy March Madness to all who celebrate. (For those whose teams did not make the Final Four: my condolences.)

As it stands, Donald Trump still leads the Republican field, and Ron DeSantis is still trying his best to avoid saying his name, but the clock is quickly running out on how long he can stay out of the arena. Tonight, the state of play in Tallahassee, along with the prerequisite G.O.P. consultant bitching about a certain new guy in town.

Tina

P.S.: For a dose of razor-sharp legal analysis on Trump’s ostensibly looming indictment, catch Puck’s resident legal expert Eriq Gardner in conversation with our executive editor, Ben Landy, this Thursday at 2 p.m. ET. The private, off-the-record call is only available to Inner Circle members—you can upgrade your subscription here.

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The DeSantis Consultant Mind Trap

After stumbles and setbacks, Ron DeSantis’s growing pains are becoming more evident to G.O.P. operatives: his inability to manage media outside Florida, political missteps, organizational drama, and a ham-fisted approach to his chief opponent.

TINA NGUYEN

As his expected presidential announcement looms, Ron DeSantis’s usually staid, buttoned-up, disciplined orbit unexpectedly lost altitude last week. Granted, plenty of the chaos was a predictable consequence of DeSantis engaging Piers Morgan to test a few negative opinions about Donald Trump, breaking his self-imposed omertà, and provoking the former president and his allies to carpet-bomb DeSantis in response. Among the latest hits was the insinuation that DeSantis is secretly an establishment tool of Karl Rove and Paul Ryan, a cardinal sin on par, at least in MAGA circles, with Trump’s previous slander labeling DeSantis a “groomer.”

The Morgan interview, which came on the heels of news that Trump might soon be indicted, seemed to position DeSantis to enter a new gear. But a series of rare self-imposed mistakes ended up stealing the show, and generating headlines of their own: drama surrounding his book...

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