Trump held off making his announcement as long as possible, because it was his way of attracting attention and exerting authority over the other candidates. Finally, DeSantis had had enough. He announced his candidacy in the summer of 2023, explaining that he assumed that Trump had decided not to run, and sounding as deferential as possible to the man on golf cart.
Trump was outraged, as anyone would have predicted. He announced that he would take on the ungrateful “Ron the RINO” within days. He attacked DeSantis, amusingly enough, for being irresponsible on the “Trump vaccine.” He claimed DeSantis was a closet environmentalist who was soft on fossil fuels. He said DeSantis didn’t really care about illegal immigration and had presided over an increase in violent crime. But mostly, he went on and on about how DeSantis had failed to support him adequately on January 6. DeSantis was not a true counterrevolutionary, he fumed. He had to go, along with all of the rest of the corrupt establishment.
DeSantis, for his part, was much more moderate in tone, but as the campaign got uglier, he took stronger stands on Trump’s failures in office and on his irresponsibility on January 6. Tucker Carlson was appalled; to him, this was the right-wing equivalent of Sanders fighting with Warren. Couldn’t they just work together and get along? The answer was no; there was too much at stake.
In the end, the GOP voters split pretty evenly over the January 6 issue. Biden waited in the wings to take on a badly divided party.