It wasn’t always this way.

Before Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis were leading rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, they were allies.

Trump gave DeSantis’ gubernatorial bid an early boost by tweeting his support even before DeSantis formally entered the race. In his 2018 victory speech, DeSantis made sure to thank the president, saying, “I think we’ll have a great partnership.”

Here’s how DeSantis and Trump’s relationship has evolved — and broken down — as the two face off to take on Democrat Joe Biden:

‘UNITE BEHIND THE REPUBLICAN TICKET’

During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-congressman DeSantis said he wouldn’t make an endorsement in the crowded field but would support the eventual nominee.

When that ended up being Trump, DeSantis issued a statement calling on fellow Republicans to back the celebrity businessman.

“It is now clear that Donald Trump will accumulate the delegates necessary to be nominated by the Republican Party,” DeSantis said in a statement, according to NPR.

“If we want to defeat Hillary Clinton and have a chance to change the trajectory of our country, we need to unite behind the Republican ticket this November.”

Texas’ GOP-led House of Representatives was set to hold historic impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday as the scandal-plagued Republican called on supporters to protest a vote that could lead to his ouster.

The House scheduled an afternoon start for debate on whether to impeach and suspend Paxton from office over allegations of bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust — just some of the accusations that have trailed Texas’ top lawyer for most of his three terms.

The hearing sets up what could be a remarkably sudden downfall for one of the GOP’s most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of President Donald Trump. Only two officials in Texas’ nearly 200-year history have been impeached.

Paxton, 60, has called the impeachment proceedings “political theater” based on “hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims,” and an attempt to disenfranchise voters who re-elected him in November. On Friday he asked supporters “to peacefully come let their voices be heard at the Capitol tomorrow.”

Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, though he has yet to stand trial. Until this week his fellow Republicans have taken a muted stance on the allegations.

Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s criminal case in Manhattan have shared a recording of the former president speaking to a witness with Mr Trump’s legal team.

The witness hasn’t been identified, a document made public by the prosecutorial office on Friday stated, according to CBS News.

The document is known as an automatic discovery form and outlines the charges that a defendant is facing and also provides an overview of the evidence gathered against Mr Trump that’s set to be put forward at trial or at a preliminary hearing.

Both Mr Trump’s lawyers and the press had made several requests that an automatic discovery form be made public after Mr Trump’s 4 April arrest.

Mr Trump, the first ex-president in US history to be criminally charged, has pleaded not guilty to the 34 counts of falsifying business records in the hush money case. The 34 instances are alleged to have taken place between 14 February and 5 December 2017 during Mr Trump’s first year in the White House.

Former special counsel John Durham is scheduled to testify before a House committee next month about his recently completed report on the FBI‘s investigation of Donald Trump‘s 2016 presidential campaign.

Durham is due to appear on June 20 in a closed-door session with the House intelligence committee and will testify publicly the following day before the House Judiciary Committee, according to a person who discussed the dates on the condition of anonymity because they had not been publicly announced.

Durham was appointed in 2019 by then-Attorney General William Barr to investigate possible government mistakes and misconduct in the investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

His report concluded that the FBI acted too hastily and without sufficient justification to launch a full investigation in 2016. But many of the errors that it identified were also flagged in an earlier 2019 report by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

Durham’s four-year investigation produced just three criminal prosecutions — one that resulted in a guilty plea from an FBI lawyer and a sentence of probation, and two others that ended with acquittals before a jury.

The former president is leading all other Republican candidates for the party’s presidential nomination, with Mr DeSantis running in second place, according to polls.

The Florida governor officially launched his own bid earlier this week in a chaotic Twitter Spaces event with billionaire Elon Musk.

And Mr DeSantis told radio host Matt Murphy that he was running to the right of Mr Trump and portrayed himself as more conservative, according to USA Today.

“It seems like he’s running to the left and I have always been somebody that’s just been moored in conservative principles,” said Mr DeSantis.

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Two-term North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a former computer software entrepreneur, is running for the Republican presidential nomination, a political aide familiar with the plans told The Associated Press on Friday, putting him in an already crowded field dominated by ex-President Donald Trump,

The aide said Burgum plans to launch his campaign with a June 7 event in Fargo, the largest city in North Dakota. The aide was speaking on the condition of anonymity because the event had not been publicized yet.

The 66-year-old Burgum is jumping into a field that includes fellow Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, seen by some Republicans as the strongest alternative to Trump. Other candidates include former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Former Vice President Mike Pence is also considered a likely presidential candidate but has not yet announced a bid.

The eventual GOP nominee is expected to face Democratic President Joe Biden in November 2024.

Prosecutors in Mr Trump’s criminal case in Manhattan have shared a recording of the former president speaking to a witness with Mr Trump’s legal team, according to CBS News.

The witness hasn’t been identified, a document made public by the prosecutorial office on Friday stated.

The document is known as an automatic discovery form and outlines the charges that a defendant is facing and also provides an overview of the evidence gathered against Mr Trump that’s set to be put forward at trial or at a preliminary hearing.

Both Mr Trump’s lawyers and the press had made several requests that an automatic discovery form be made public after Mr Trump’s 4 April arrest.

Mr Trump, the first ex-president in US history to be criminally charged, has pleaded not guilty to the 34 counts of falsifying business records in the hush money case. The 34 instances are alleged to have taken place between 14 February and 5 December 2017 during Mr Trump’s first year in the White House.

He’s a ubiquitous presence in conservative media with a reputation as an anti-woke warrior who has used a compliant state legislature to make Florida a mecca for Trump-era Republicanism.

Andrew Feinberg and Eric Garcia report.