NBC News reports that former President Trump is starting to scale up his attacks on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
It is believed that DeSantis will very likely enter the 2024 race for the Presidency on the Republican side, and he is seen as a primary rival to Trump for the GOP nomination. Trump is bringing a new sense of urgency to the battle against DeSantis.
Trump has been trying out several tactics to take DeSantis down a peg to varying degrees of success. He offered a nickname for DeSantis of Ron DeSanctimonious, but this has been seen as too clunky and just not clicking with the people that it needs to. Now, Trump is taking to his social media website, Truth Social, to go after DeSantis in another way. Trump referred to DeSantis as a RINO GLOBALIST on his platform. RINO stands for Republican in name only and is used as a derogative way to refer to ones opponent in the GOP primary process.
Trump also shared a picture of Ron DeSantis from his brief period as a high school teacher. The picture showed DeSantis surrounded by several young-looking women (allegedly high school students). Trump also suggested that DeSantis partied with high school girls inappropriately. The DeSantis camp has refused to clarify whether the pictures are legitimate. NBC News has also not confirmed the authenticity of the pictures at this time.
Trump has also slung allegations of DeSantis as being disloyal. Trump endorsed DeSantis in 2018 when he was seen as an underdog to win the Governors mansion in Florida. When DeSantis pulled off the narrow and surprising victory, Trump believed he should have been given more credit for the win.
NBC News reported that DeSantis has been using the fact that he won re-election in 2022 as a talking point against Trump. This is a subtle dig at Trump losing the 2020 election. DeSantis appears to be attempting to tell GOP voters that they ought to trust him over Trump to win in the 2024 election.
DeSantis took another more direct shot at Trump by saying:
I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida, and fighting against [President] Joe Biden.
and
I dont spend my time trying to smear other Republicans.
These are apparent attacks on Trump and how he has conducted himself in this campaign and others.
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