Jen Psaki was struck Friday with a nagging question that she decided to air out while filling in on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes”: Is Ron DeSantis OK?
“So lately as I have been watching the way Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is running his presidential campaign, there’s a question that has been running through my mind: Are you OK governor? I mean, for real — are you good?” she said, before indicating that she thinks he doesn’t actually want to be president.
She then ran down a laundry list of recent developments that show his campaign might be in trouble.
“It’s enough to make you wonder if this whole campaign is really a cry for help,” Psaki said. “Does he really want to do it?”
“It’s OK if you don’t actually want to run for president. It’s completely OK,” she clarified earlier on in the segment. “It’s difficult, really, to take away any other conclusion when you look at the events of the last few weeks from the Florida governor’s increasingly bizarre campaign for the White House.”
The former press secretary for President Joe Biden’s White House then turned her attention to the DeSantis campaign’s spending habits, stating that, per a recent fundraising report, his campaign is underperforming but overspending.
“Until recently, at least, he was burning through money like a teen pop star with a new record deal. For anyone who doesn’t follow that, it’s quite quickly,” Psaki said. She then broke down where some of that money might be going — namely, DeSantis and his wife, Casey, “criss-crossing the country on private jets, spending more than $1 million on air travel.”
(Humorously, Psaki used this opportunity to get a dig in at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, noting: “Don’t they know free private jet rides are only available to conservative Supreme Court justices with rich benefactors? Sorry, I couldn’t help myself on that one.”)
Tie in DeSantis’ recent defense of a Florida’s Department of Education decision mandating the state curriculum include language “effectively defending slavery and touting the supposed benefits of it to people who were enslaved” — and thirdly his proposed appointment of Democratic presidential hopeful and noted anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to his cabinet — and Psaki figured it’s three strikes and you’re out.
“So DeSantis is floundering in the polls, burning through cash, defending the merits of slavery, floating jobs for conspiracy theorist Democrats — it’s enough to make you wonder if this whole campaign is really a cry for help,” she concluded. “Does he really want to do it?”
She ended the segment sarcastically emphasizing how he could always fall back on his charisma:
“Just know that you can always take solace in the knowledge that you still have the political X-factor, that unteachable gift for retail politics that could make up for all of it.”
She then showed a clip of DeSantis telling a child there’s too much sugar in their chosen snack on a hot day: an ice pop.
Watch the full “All In” segment with Psaki in the video above.
