Ex-presidential niece Mary Trump and her guest, historian and author Ruth Ben-Ghiat, agreed that if President Donald Trump gets back into power, he will “take revenge” on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis has dominated headlines lately with his ostentatiously political transports of migrants to places like Martha’s Vineyard, and has without a doubt emerged as Trump’s main rival by projecting himself as a version of Trump with less baggage, while speaking not a syllable against Trump.

On the most recent edition of The Mary Trump Show podcast, Ben-Ghiat noted that DeSantis has been “flourishing” by imitating Trump, but said that might come back to bite the Florida governor if Trump manages a victory:

MARY TRUMP: If you’re objective, you think, okay, this is a person who’s gotten away with stuff for a really long time and hopefully it’s catching up with him, which is why there are so many investigations and lawsuits, etc.

But if you’re inclined to support him, it’s going to seem like people are out to get him because it’s unthinkable that one person could have committed so many crimes and gotten away with them. And I think that’s part of what we’re kind of grappling with right now.

RUTH BEN-GHIAT: Yeah, I agree. And in fact, another unprecedented thing is that, you know, Trump must be very doubly feeling like the victim because his big lie thing didn’t work for him. Right. He wasn’t actually able to stay in office. But the party embraced it. They embraced the coup. They are all living high off the big lie. In fact, there’s now a plethora of Mini-Trumps that anybody can become a little Trump, and if they don’t like the result of the election, they can just say it didn’t happen.

And look at, then you must be particularly upset with Mr. Ron DeSantis, who has learned all of his lessons and as the most ruthless of the bunch, was the earliest to start his office of, quote, election crimes. And now he made those like sham arrests, and he’s learned all of the lessons.

But he’s flourishing and Trump’s in limbo, which increases the odds that he has to run for office because he’s got to get back in and shut everything down and take revenge. I have zero doubt that, this is how strongmen are.

MARY TRUMP: Yes, I was going to ask you that. So I’m glad you went there!

RUTH BEN-GHIAT: Yes. Once they get in the system, look at Berlusconi. Right. He was it’s very important. Berlusconi had an enormous personality cult. He was so corrupt. I can’t even describe. He was ultimately convicted after he was forced to resign. They started prosecuting him and they tried to prosecute him.

Dozen– he had dozens of corruption trials while he was prime minister. Nothing could touch him because he would change the laws. Like if he was accused of bribery. He got parliament to change the law. So bribery was no longer punishable with jail. Like that’s what he would do. For years he did this stuff. So finally he’s booted out because of the eurozone crisis. They prosecute him and he’s convicted. So he’s a convicted criminal. He’s back in power now and he’s convicted. The key thing was that prosecution was the only way that his personality cult started to deflate and his party finally lost its hold. And he was banned from politics for five years. And that’s what made his party go from the mighty powerhouse to now, it got like 7%.

The fact he’s back in power again, it means that once you’re in the system, you never really get rid of them. Right. However, his most lethal, dangerous self was deflated because he was prosecuted and convicted.

Watch above via The Mary Trump Show.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

The death toll from Hurricane Ian is currently rising as search and rescue efforts are underway in Florida, and estimates place the cost of the damage caused by the hurricane at some staggering figures.

A total of 30 people were reported dead, including 27 in Florida, the Associated Press reported on Saturday. The actual number is likely far higher, however, as Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno announced in a Facebook video on the same day that there are 35 deaths in his Florida county alone.

NBC News also reported on Friday that based on numbers from state officials as well as their own count, at least 34 are deceased due to the hurricane, while ABC News reported at least 52 deaths, citing numbers from local officials.

Marceno said in the video authorities are working to notify next of kin before releasing names and official numbers. He added that more than 600 rescues have occurred in the wake of the deadly hurricane.

According to estimates from disaster modeling firm Karen Clark & Co., the cost of damage caused by Hurricane Ian could be “well over $100 billion.” That number would include $63 billion in privately insured losses.

President Joe Biden tweeted on Saturday that Hurricane Ian’s destruction is “likely to rank among the worst in the nation’s history.”

“We’re beginning to see the scale of the devastation in Florida which is likely to rank among the worst in the nation’s history,” he tweeted. “Our hearts break for the folks whose lives have been devastated by this storm.”

We’re beginning to see the scale of the devastation in Florida which is likely to rank among the worst in the nation’s history.

Our hearts break for the folks whose lives have been devastated by this storm.

We are with you. And we’ll stay at it for as long as it takes.

— President Biden (@POTUS) October 1, 2022

Various locations have been set up in areas hit worst by the hurricane like For Myers offering food and water to residents, a list of which can be found here. More than one million people remain without power in the state as of Saturday.

TikTok and Instagram are awash with accounts featuring DIY and furniture flipping instructional videos that make refinishing thrift store finds into expensive-looking pieces look quick and easy. (Of course, when you edit four hours of paint-stripping and sanding down to two seconds, you can make any project seem quick…

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