Trump: DeSantis, Cruz, and Hawley are the 2024 autocrats to watch out for

In an interview on Lisa Marie Boothe’s podcast, Donald Trump says he sees Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Rep. Ted Cruz, and Sen. Josh Hawley as future leaders of the Republican party.

“We have a lot of young, good people. Ron DeSantis is doing a really good job in Florida, and I think Josh Hawley has shown some real courage in going after big tech. You know, they go after him,” Trump said on the podcast. “Josh is terrific. And you know somebody that’s been really terrific is Ted Cruz.”
Newsweek

Ron DeSantis has actively covered up Florida’s COVID-19 numbers. Most recently, he banned critical race theory from public schools, opting for a whitewashed education curriculum that ignores the history of slavery and racism that provided the foundation for the United States. (He didn’t really change anything, though; Florida schools never taught critical race theory.)

Ted Cruz recently fled the country to escape a crisis in Texas, the state he represents, and then he blamed his daughter. He is a favorite of the dark money donor family, the Mercers.

Josh Hawley has become a mascot for the GOP’s fake outrage around “cancel culture” and hasn’t hesitated to attack the free market or parrot Trump talking points. He has attacked rights for LGBTQ+ people as being the end of “legal conservatism.” He won his 2018 Senate race thanks to a dark money campaign and illegal coordination with the National Rifle Association.

All three have attacked the FBI for investigating the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia. Trump previously endorsed Cruz and Hawley for the Supreme Court.

Sarah Kendzior, whose book Hiding In Plain Sight inspired this website, and Andrea Chalupa have warned listeners of their Gaslit Nation podcast about Josh Hawley and what to expect in 2024.

The GOP wants a one-party state, and Trump wants to be the autocrat of that state. The idea that they are incompetent is a myth. They are very competent. They are just not interested in the process of governing. They are interested in ruling.
Sarah Kendzior, 2019

I think the most troubling thing here is, next time we’re going to get posh Trump. We’re going to get a cleaned up version of Trump. Maybe it’ll be Josh Hawley out of Missouri who has a boyish smile. Maybe it’ll be him. It’s going to be somebody like that that they’re going to try to run and clean up nice for the American public.
Andrea Chalupa, December 2020

Hawley has one donor in particular—we don’t know who it is—who pumped an incredible amount of money into that campaign. I think, because he has no moral core—there’s no “there” there with Hawley. It’s just greed, ambition, and just general contempt for this country, contempt for human life—he’s a malleable actor. He can be moved and shaped in whatever direction his donors and backers want to push him. That’s what makes him dangerous, much more than Hawley the human being. He is my senator. I’ve been watching him, and I know this.
Sarah Kendzior, January 2021