At a campaign speech in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday night, former President Donald Trump hammered many issues with the Biden administration but also tore into Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, his largest perceived threat on the 2024 campaign trail for the Republican nomination.
Calling DeSantis, among other things, a “disciple of Paul Ryan,” Trump painted the Florida governor as a “grandma over the cliff” kind of guy on Social Security and Medicare. The imagery was a reference to an old Democratic campaign ad that tried to paint Paul Ryan and other Republicans who supported entitlement reform, as being harsh and uncaring for the elderly.
You can see Trump’s full speech here, and it’s worth watching to see him outline a campaign platform.
Here’s a small snapshot of Trump’s statements against DeSantis, an ongoing preview into what the primary will look like when and if DeSantis eventually launches a 2024 campaign:
There are certainly politicians that this line of attack would stick against, but Ron DeSantis doesn’t strike me as one of them.
Trump has also recently taken up praising previous Florida governors, including the roundly rejected Charlie Crist:
WATCH: Donald Trump praises governorships of Charlie Crist and Rick Scott in video addressing DeSantis
"Florida was doing fantastically. You had a governor named Rick Scott who did a very good job. Even Charlie Crist, a Democrat, did a good job – and he had very good numbers." pic.twitter.com/KMB0nF1AKV
— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) March 13, 2023
It’s not DeSantis, Trump argues, doing anything for Florida, it’s merely that the state has sunshine, nice weather, and some good governors before him.
Is that true? Partially, maybe, but Floridians don’t seem to have much of anything nice to say about Charlie Crist:
Crist was rejected by a 19-point margin in 2022. Clearly, the voters of Florida felt that DeSantis was doing something right, the race wasn’t even competitive.
None of this is meant to be a bash on Trump or defense of DeSantis but merely an observation that this line of attack–painting DeSantis as a chance governor that fell in at the right time–seems like it will be ineffective.
It’s noteworthy that during his time of attacking DeSantis in the speech, Trump received little applause from an extremely friendly audience of supporters. Perhaps that’s because it makes the room feel awkward when the audience’s favorite political warrior is attacking their second-favorite political warrior. They most likely want to vote for Trump in the primary but also don’t want to watch friendly fire between two previously close allies. In a way, it’s like parents fighting while the kids sit quietly in the bedroom waiting for it to end.
Then again, maybe this is just politics, as Trump himself alluded to in the first clip above. He dings DeSantis for not supporting ethanol, then says if DeSantis decides not to run for president, Trump will probably reverse his criticism and say he was fine on ethanol. It’s a statement that somewhat undercuts his own attack indicating that Trump himself doesn’t necessarily believe the stuff he’s saying about DeSantis. Still, he feels he has to say it anyway.
Politico reported today that during a press gaggle on the flight to Iowa, Trump basically said he regretted endorsing DeSantis in 2018:
“He was dead as a dog, he was a dead politician. He would have been working perhaps for a law firm or doing something else,” Trump told a small group of reporters aboard his plane on Monday afternoon en route to Iowa, where he was to make an appearance that evening.
Asked if he regretted endorsing DeSantis for governor in 2018, Trump responded: “Yeah maybe, this guy was dead. He was dead as a doornail. … I might say that.”
There’s no denying that Trump helped DeSantis over the line in 2018, especially during the Republican primary. After that, however, DeSantis was left to sink or swim on his own. He could’ve recoiled from the daily cultural battles and stayed quiet on fighting Covid or the woke indoctrination creeping into schools, but he found his voice as Governor and used it.
According to polls, Trump is nationally 20 points ahead of DeSantis, but some head-to-head or state polls show them closer, and some with DeSantis ahead.
Is this a good look for Trump? Many observers think it’s unhelpful since he appears focused on DeSantis exclusively as his biggest foe.
On the other hand, Trump’s political instincts have gotten him quite far in politics riding all the way to the White House. Why should he second-guess himself now? If DeSantis, for the time being, seems like Teflon-Ron, maybe Don needs to try putting some dents in the armor.
DeSantis, for his part, has stayed out of responding to Trump by name, instead focusing on his job as governor and indicating that he’s not going to get down in political mud just yet.
