(NewsNation) — With former President Donald Trump the winner of the Iowa Republican caucus, other Republican candidates battled for second place. And there’s at least one thing former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly seems certain of in the 2024 election: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is “through.”
“He’s a terrible campaigner, DeSantis. He’s stiff. He doesn’t look like he cares about the folks. He can’t get his message across without repeating himself 15 times. He’s boring,” O’Reilly told NewsNation host Chris Cuomo. “And in this day and age, you can’t be boring — and he is.”
O’Reilly continued: “So, he’s through. He can go to South Carolina, he can go to Guam, he can go anywhere he wants. He’s not beating Trump. Nikki Haley — different.”
NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ called Trump as the winner of the Iowa Republican caucuses. NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ later projected DeSantis would finish second in the Republican Iowa caucus with Haley projected to finish third.
The author said he didn’t have any doubt Iowans would deliver Trump the victory in the caucus, which typically winnows the field of challengers more than it determines a winner.
“You can’t challenge a monster like Donald Trump with a personality like Ron DeSantis. It can’t be done,” O’Reilly said. “Nikki Haley, she’s going at it in an entirely different way.”
To O’Reilly, it “doesn’t matter” whether DeSantis beat Haley for second place in the Iowa Republican caucus.
“The fact that it’s so close now is embarrassing for DeSantis. Haley will be around,” O’Reilly said.
While the commentator thinks Haley is a good campaigner, he thinks she will end up losing to Trump by wide margins in her home state.
“She’s campaigning for vice president, but because Trump does not like her, I doubt that will happen. But Haley knows she’s going to get waxed in South Carolina because that’s MAGA country,” O’Reilly said.
The Iowa caucuses kicked off the 2024 election season Monday. New Hampshire holds its primary in eight days.
Trump has dominated the polls for weeks, though other candidates — Haley, DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson — spent the last weeks braving the bitter cold in Iowa to court GOP voters. Ramaswamy dropped out of the 2024 races soon after the Iowa caucuses and endorsed Trump.