As he continues to push his 2024 presidential campaign and looks to distance himself from other Republican competitors, former President Donald Trump has slammed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a new video.
Trump and DeSantis have been neck-and-neck among Republicans despite the governor not yet announcing his intentions to seek the 2024 Republican nomination.
The delay from DeSantis hasn’t stopped the former president from taking shots, whether it be through grade-school-style nicknames and insults or by criticizing his work in office.
“For those of you that didn’t notice, Florida was doing great long before Ron DeSanctus got there. People are fleeing from New York to Florida and other places because of high taxes and out-of-control crime – it’s really bad – not because of the governor,” Trump remarked in a new video posted on his social media site Truth Social.
Trump went on in the video to push his claim that DeSantis was not responsible for Florida being “fantastic,” instead saying that the men who held his post before him did just as good a job.
“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,” Trump said. “Sunshine and ocean are very alluring. It’s not too hard to work with those factors. So just remember, Florida was doing really well long before Ron DeSanctus got there.”
The video from Trump comes after former senior officials for the president, like former acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli, came out in support of DeSantis.
“[DeSantis] is just head and shoulders above the rest of the field in that respect, so this isn’t negative to anybody else. It’s just a recognition of how good Governor DeSantis is,” Cuccinelli told Fox News last week.
It also comes as the Iowa caucus nears, with key Republican voters in the state not clearly siding with one candidate over the other.
A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll found the two men to be the top two favorites, with 80% of those polled saying they view Trump “very” or “most” favorably, while 75% reported the same for DeSantis.
However, the poll did note the decline of unwavering support for Trump since June 2021, with the percentage of Iowa Republicans who would “definitely” vote for him in 2024 falling by more than 20 percentage points since then.
DeSantis is still waiting to announce his candidacy, as he is currently traveling the country on a book tour. Those close to the governor have said he will make his final decision on whether or not he will run after the Florida legislative session ends.
Whether it be “Ron DeSanctimonious,” “Ron DeSanctus,” or “Meatball Ron,” Trump has continued to focus his current political strategy on slamming his main challenger while also sharing his agenda.
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