Ron DeSantis 'Not a Natural Candidate,' GOP Strategist Says

A veteran Republican strategist has said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is not a "natural candidate" for president and that he isn't likely to defeat former President Donald Trump.

Ed Rollins, who served as a political adviser to the late President Ronald Reagan, told CNN on Monday that DeSantis didn't seem willing to take constructive criticism and he had "makes dumb moves."

His comments come as DeSantis dismissed previous criticism Rollins had levied against him during an interview with Rolling Stone published late July as "nonsense."

Trump remains the polls' frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, while DeSantis' campaign has apparently struggled. The campaign recently cut roughly a third of its staff—or 38 people—as part of a reset. Polls at this early stage of a presidential race are not necessarily indicative of what the GOP primaries' end results will be.

"He's just not a natural candidate," Rollins told CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront on Monday.

A clip of the interview was shared to Twitter by user Acyn and had been viewed more than 26,000 times as of early Tuesday morning.

Newsweek has reached out to the DeSantis campaign via email for comment.

"I have nothing against him as a governor, I think we have some great governors that are running for president, but I just don't think he's the guy that's gonna beat Trump and Trump at this point in time is stronger than he's ever been," Rollins said.

"He's not a people person," Rollins agreed in response to a question, adding he didn't believe the governor was open to constructive criticism.

"No, at least [from] everything I hear, he's not," Rollins said.

"He makes dumb moves," Rollins went on. "Controlling the budget is a very important part of a campaign. He raised a lot of money early on. You don't lay off a third of your staff a week before you're gonna announce in Iowa. You wait a couple weeks, you spread them out, do something with them, send them home."

"But you don't basically—I arrive, gonna run in Iowa, I haven't been managing my budget, I've got to lay off a third of my people. People say, well, the job you're running for is about management, among a lot of other things," Rollins went on.

"So to me, everything he's kind of done, it's just—he's not a bad guy, he's a good guy. We've got lots of good guys running for the presidency, but you're not gonna beat Trump," he said.

Rollins served as co-chairman of the Ready for Ron PAC, which supports DeSantis' presidential bid, but he appears to have changed his view on the Florida governor.

In an interview with Rolling Stone in late July, Rollins said he was "not involved" with efforts to elect DeSantis and described the governor as a "very flawed candidate."

"I think he's been a very flawed candidate. I know some of the people around him, and some of them are good, talented people. But every time he opens his mouth, he has a tendency to—shall we say—think out-loud, and he clearly doesn't understand the game," Rollins said. "When you get into these culture wars the way that he has, the vast majority of people don't understand what they are."

Rollins also said that at this point, he would be "shocked if Trump were not the nominee."

DeSantis responded to those criticisms during an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier on Monday.

"Well it's obviously nonsense," the governor said. "I mean, I came into a state that had been decided by one point for a generation. You've covered some of those races. I govern boldly. I govern unapologetically. I delivered big results, and we won by 20 points. You don't win a state like Florida that big if you're not doing things that are resonating."

"And I would push back—when I hear about things, 'Oh, culture war'—standing up for the rights of parents, standing up for the well-being of children, that's not some 'culture war,'" DeSantis said. "That is central to the lives of tens of millions of people throughout this country. It is the right thing to do to stand with our kids."