‘I’m Shocked!’: CNN’s Ana Navarro Can’t Believe She Just Said This About Ron DeSantis
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was damned with some very faint praise from CNN’s Paul Begala and Ana Navarro following his town hall on the network that was hosted by Jake Tapper in Des Moines, Iowa, on Tuesday.
“He’s much less robotic,” Democratic strategist Begala said his wife had texted him about the Republican 2024 candidate’s televised performance.
“My answer is, ‘Yes, AI is getting better every single day. It’s almost lifelike,’” Begala cracked, but he also said DeSantis “is just not getting it done” even though he was “better than usual.”
Republican strategist Navarro, meanwhile, acknowledged being surprised by DeSantis, whose awkward moments on the GOP debate stage and 2024 campaign trail have gone viral and done little to stop him from trailing so far behind front-runner Donald Trump in the polls.
“Listen, I’m shocked I’m saying this,” said Navarro in a video shared online by Mediaite. “I think people are gonna be shocked. I’m saying this because I truly don’t like this man.”
She continued, “You know, I live in Florida. I’ve lived under him for five years now, and I particularly in these last couple of years, I think he’s been awful. Today, I think he was strangely close to human.”
“I think this the best I have seen him of late,” Navarro added. “That’s a very low bar. But this is the best I’ve seen him. I think this is a very good format for him.”
Navarro suggested it could be down to DeSantis’ talking “about substantive policy issues that the American people and people of Iowa care about, not stupid manufactured culture wars that he thought was going to win him the nomination.”
DeSantis’ problem was that he’d missed his one chance to make a good first impression, she said, adding his campaign now has a “certain stench of political death that is very hard to get rid of.”
