Mike Francesa has declared Donald Trump’s campaign to regain the presidency hopeless.
(Insert your Shohei Ohtani and Tiger Woods jokes here.)
The WFAN legend was asked to handicap the Republican primary race on his latest BetRivers podcast. Francesa — who endorsed Trump in 2016, but voted for Joe Biden in 2020 — acknowledged Trump is the favorite to win the GOP nomination for the third time. But he said Trump will get no further than that.
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“The staunch diehards are the people who vote in the primary. Those are your diehard members of your party. And I don’t know if enough of them have come away from Trump to where someone else can win,” Francesa said. “And really, you’re talking about one person winning right now. The other candidates, none of them have any chance to win. There is one candidate that has a chance to unseat Trump.”
Francesa was presumably talking about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, but he did not elaborate.
“But do they come to a realization that in the general (election), Trump is unelectable because of what went on at the end of his presidency?” Francesa continued, echoing past criticisms of Trump’s COVID-19 response, election denialism and the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
“I believe he is unelectable because of what went on at the end of his presidency. So even if he wins the primary and gets the nomination, I do not think he will win the general. He will lose. I firmly believe that. I don’t know if the Republican Party and the diehards believe that, but I firmly believe that. I do not think he can win.”
Francesa praised Trump in the run-up to the 2016 general election, but did not offer much political commentary during his first three years in office. Francesa then blasted Trump for how he handled the pandemic in the spring of 2020. And he was very vocal in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6. Francesa has also criticized Biden recently and took Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg to task after he indicated Trump.
James Kratch can be reached at james.kratch@xlmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @jameskratch.
