Ron DeSantis makes aggressive 2028 move as he slams Trump for 'gaslighting' America and warns GOP is 'facing an extinction-level event'

Outgoing Florida Governor and former 2024 presidential contender Ron DeSantis has taken a swipe at Donald Trump after the Republican defeat in the midterm elections.DeSantis called it 'close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country' and singled out the Democratic wins in the Texas governor and Senate races in what he called 'the crown jewel of Republican politics.''Let's just be clear, that is going to hurt, not just for the next two years, that's something that can reverberate for the next decade or more,' he said at a press conference in Tallahassee on Wednesday.'And if the Republican Party doesn't have Texas as an anchor, then we are not going to be viable nationally going forward.'DeSantis had already turned on the administration before the results came in, warning in a podcast interview that Republicans who refused to admit the Iran war had driven up gas prices were 'gaslighting' voters.'Gas is higher. It hurts working-class people, and it's higher because of this conflict. That's just a fact. If you can't admit that to voters, then you're gaslighting them, and they're not gonna listen to you on other things,' DeSantis told Stephen A. Smith.He branded the war a 'big drag' on the party and said that had it been wrapped up as quickly as the Venezuela operation 'it probably wouldn't have been an issue.''[Trump] obviously ran saying he wasn't going to do a Middle East war. They did. So we have some of our voters who've checked out because they're like, 'I didn't want any more Middle East wars, and now we're doing it,' he said. 'Dems will get 55 Senate seats and 250+ House seats,' the Republican governor posted early Wednesday morning, delivering a damning analysis after the party was pummeled at the polls Trump and Vice President JD Vance have blamed the election blowout as a referendum on the deeply unpopular US-Iran warTrump's hand-picked candidate for the US Senate Race in Texas, Ken Paxton, lost to Democrat James Talarico. The last time a Democrat was elected to the Senate in Texas was 1988He also warned that a war dragging on for the rest of Trump's term would undermine the president's ability to govern and make the next election cycle a struggle for Republicans.Democrats are on course for at least 54 Senate seats in the next Congress against 44 for Republicans, and have won at least 228 House seats to the GOP's 139, with far more still to be called.DeSantis expects the rout to get worse.'Dems will get 55 Senate seats and 250+ House seats,' he posted on X early Wednesday morning.'Looking at the Senate map and considering such a massive House margin, it is very unlikely Republicans will recapture the Congress in 2028. Might not have a shot at Senate control until 2032.'Vance conceded in a lengthy post that the voters who carried the ticket to victory in 2024 had sided with Democrats in condemning the administration over the deeply unpopular US-Iran war.DeSantis, who is term-limited after two terms, held up Florida as the last Republican fortress among the nation's biggest states.'With the loss of governors races in Texas, Ohio and Georgia, there will be only one state of the top ten most populous states with a Republican governor: Florida,' he wrote on X on Tuesday night. Republican gubernatorial candidate Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., greets supporters at an election night event Tuesday Darline Graham, the sister of late South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and the candidate selected by Trump to run for his open seat, lost her bid in South Carolina Tuesday nightTrump-backed Republican Byron Donalds held on in Florida, narrowly defeating Democrat David Jolly to succeed DeSantis with roughly 50 percent of the vote to 48.7 percent and becoming the state's first black governor.That was a far cry from DeSantis's own 19-point reelection landslide in 2022, which established him as a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination.DeSantis took on Trump for the 2024 nomination but dropped out after finishing a distant second in the Iowa caucuses, endorsing his former rival on the way out.His latest broadside immediately fueled speculation that he is gearing up for a second White House run in 2028.Vance remains the frontrunner for the GOP nomination on prediction market Kalshi at 31 percent, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio second on 22 percent, but DeSantis's odds rocketed overnight to 19 percent, a jump of more than 14 points.Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, a Florida resident who backed DeSantis in the 2024 GOP primary, said overnight that 'Ron is going to run.''Governor DeSantis in Florida who already ran once, if he waits another four years, then he's not really relevant,' he added.The GOP now faces a reckoning over its strategy ahead of the presidential contest in two years.Two Republican strategists told the Daily Mail the party faces a period of soul-searching over whether MAGA candidates are the way forward, with Trump term-limited and Vance the presumed heir apparent without the president's endorsement.DeSantis's criticism positions him as a potential alternative to Vance as Republicans debate the party's direction after Trump.Trump admitted in a Truth Social post late on election night that candidate quality was an issue that not even his near-constant campaigning could solve.Many Republicans, however, have pointed the finger squarely at the president's decision to launch the Iran war.The fallout in Trump's orbit may only be beginning as the president looks for someone to blame for the blue tsunami.'I think we're gonna have some heads on some stakes in the next coming days and weeks,' one of the strategists said.But the race for 2028 is already on, they said, and whoever jumps in first will have more time to separate their brand from the president's.