Wednesday 16 November 2022 12:59 AM America braces for Trump's big announcement trends now

Former President Donald Trump invited press and the MAGA faithful down to Mar-a-Lago Tuesday night for a 'special announcement' that all but confirmed his ambitions to run for the White House in 2024.  

Gold-colored folding chairs adorned the Mar-a-Lago ballroom's floors on Tuesday and chandeliers hung from the ceiling in a symbol of opulence for the occasion.

It comes the same day as a new poll showed Trump with a commanding lead in a field of potential 2024 candidates, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has yet to rule out his own White House campaign against Trump.  

The former president has responded by calling the governor 'disloyal,' 'average' and 'Ron DeSanctimonious' amid a flurry of other insults. 

Asked about that criticism on Tuesday, DeSantis suggested he was unfazed - but went out of his way to target 'the corporate media' more directly than the former president.

'When you're leading, when you're getting things done, yeah you take incoming fire - that's just the nature of it,' DeSantis said.

'I roll out of bed in the morning, I've got corporate media outlets just having a spasm over the fact that I'm getting up in the morning. And it's constantly attacking, and this is just what's happened.'

He continued, 'I think what you learn is, all that's just noise. And really what matters is - are you leading, are you getting in front of issues, are you delivering results for people and are you standing up for folks? And if you do that, then none of that stuff matters.'

But DeSantis added as a final jab, 'At the end of the day, I would just tell people to check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night.'