Inside Ron DeSantis' plan to take on Trump from the right: report

So far, only two Republicans have officially entered the 2024 GOP presidential primary: former President Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (UN) and ex-governor of South Carolina. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has yet to make any type of formal announcement, but he certainly appears to be gearing up for a presidential run. And Trump, obviously assuming that DeSantis plans to take the plunge, has been attacking "Meatball Ron" relentlessly on his Truth Social platform.

DeSantis, so far, has mostly ignored Trump's attacks on him. But if the far-right Florida governor does enter the race, the tensions between the two of them will no doubt grow even uglier. And part of DeSantis' anti-Trump attack plan, according to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, will be slamming the former president's track record on crime.

In an article published on March 30, Haberman and Swan explain, "Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has spent months shoring up a tough-on-crime image as he weighs a run for the White House, calling for stronger penalties against drug traffickers and using $5000 bonuses to bolster law-enforcement recruitment to his state. Now, Mr. DeSantis and his allies plan to use that image to draw a contrast with the Republican frontrunner in the 2024 race, former President Donald J. Trump."

READ MORE: How a Trump indictment could doom Ron DeSantis as a presidential candidate

According to Times sources, DeSantis and his allies plan to slam Trump for signing the First Step Act of 2018 into law. The First Step Act, Haberman and Swan note, "reduced the sentences for thousands of prisoners."

"Since at least his reelection in November," according to Haberman and Swan, "Mr. DeSantis has privately suggested that Mr. Trump’s record on crime is one of several policy issues on which Mr. Trump is vulnerable to attacks from the right. One potentially complicating factor for Mr. DeSantis: He voted for the initial House version of the First Step Act in May 2018, while still a congressman."

How well DeSantis would perform against Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary is something that conservatives have been debating. And there are a variety of right-wing views on the subject.

For example, firebrand author Ann Coulter, a DeSantis cheerleader, believes that Trump is greatly diminished in the Republican Party. But The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson, a former GOP strategist and Never Trump conservative based in North Florida, has a totally different viewpoint and has predicted that Trump will flatten DeSantis in the primary when push comes to shove.

READ MORE: MAGA lawyer: Ron DeSantis will emerge 'a bloodied pulp' if he challenges Trump

Haberman and Swan report that Trump, "according to people close to him," is "aware of his vulnerability on the crime issue" and has been taking steps to "inoculate himself against attacks" from the Florida governor "by promising an uncompromising law-and-order agenda, with especially harsh treatment of drug dealers."

"Many of those released under the First Step Act had been imprisoned for selling drugs — a crime that Mr. Trump now says publicly that he wants to punish with the death penalty because of the destruction wrought by illegal drugs," Haberman and Swan point out. "Mr. Trump, early on as president, mused admiringly in private about how dictators like Xi Jinping of China and former President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines executed drug dealers."

READ MORE: 'Been to this party too many times': Rick Wilson predicts GOP will nominate Donald Trump in 2024

Read the New York Times’ full report at this link (subscription required).