‘Donald Trump Is Going To Be Not Happy!’

CNN anchors Boris Sanchez and Dana Bash had a laugh over ex-President Donald Trump’s likely reaction to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis being featured on the cover of Time magazine.

DeSantis, Trump’s nearest but still-distant competitor in GOP primary polling, is featured on the latest Time cover peeling an orange and squinting.

On Thursday’s edition of CNN News Central, Sanchez asked Bash about the cover, and the pair had a laugh imagining the magazine-obsessed Trump’s displeasure at his rival’s spotlight — but then picked apart the governor’s strategy:

SANCHEZ: I want to show the viewers the newest cover of “Time” magazine, has Florida’s governor on it. You see it right there. He’s peeling an orange, his hands juicy from doing that. Quite the look on his face.

I wonder what you make of the cover.

BASH: The first thing I thought of when I saw this cover, Boris, was Donald Trump is going to be not happy.

SANCHEZ: Right.

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: There are certain brands, historical brands that Donald Trump connects to and takes pride in, having a connection to. And “Time” magazine and being on covers of “Time” magazine is one of the primary ones.

Even though just our media landscape has changed so much, it’s not the same as it used to be to be on the cover of a magazine, but it’s very symbolic.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

BASH: I started reading through the article that our friend, Molly Ball, wrote. It is amazing, very interesting.

The notion of him as a national figure and what he has been doing, not mentioning the substance, which is incredibly important.

In Florida, the reason he delayed his official entrance into the race is to get through the Florida legislature and that session, and push through, in a very robust, very aggressive way, signature issues that put him and Florida on map.

As Molly puts it in a smart way, as a government conservative, which is going to put him at odds with other conservatives, who are more Libertarian, hands-off conservatives.

SANCHEZ: Right.

BASH: That will be a fascinating discussion and debate within the Republican party.

He did win his reelection in 2022 by almost 20 points.

SANCHEZ: Huge. BASH: Double digits-plus. You would think, in some ways, a more

traditional campaign would be, look, I won a lot of Independents, even some Democrats, obviously, so I’m going to take that and make my message on electability on the national scale.

But that’s not who he is. He’s tripling down on very culturally conservative issues and using government to push those through.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Counterintuitively, he’s running to the right of Donald Trump, but projecting himself as a more palatable candidate nationally because of Trump’s baggage.

The evidence seized in the raid on Mar-a-Lago included a set of framed Time magazine covers.

Watch above via CNN News Central.

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