Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is throwing all the heat he can at former President Donald Trump, including taking a shot at the 77-year-old’s age, suggesting he doesn’t have the stamina for a second term.
DeSantis, who is 32 years Trump’s younger, claimed that the former president has “lost the zip on his fastball” while speaking in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
The slam was right out of Trump’s arsenal, as the Republican primary leader often criticizes his 2020 rival, President Joe Biden, for being 80 years old and losing a step — literally and figuratively.
DeSantis didn’t stop with the age slams, though, as he also criticized Trump’s need to use a teleprompter after he did so during a speech earlier this week while telling the crowd it was more important to watch at the polls than to vote.
“And what Donald Trump does now, he is wedded to the teleprompter. He can’t get off that teleprompter. Any time he does, he says things like ‘Don’t vote,’” DeSantis said.
He continued, saying that Trump is “telling people not to vote like we have all the votes we need. Really?”
“Like, wait a minute, you lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016. You don’t have all the votes you need,” DeSantis said.
Trump’s remarks were just his latest effort to push his stolen election theory, noting that fraudulent activity went down at the polls in 2020.
On Monday, when the former president gave his teleprompter speech, he said, “We have to be careful. You’ve got to get out there. You’ve got to watch those voters. You don’t have to vote. Don’t worry about voting. The voting. We’ve got plenty of votes.”
However, DeSantis is arguing that Trump doesn’t have the votes or the stuff to win like he did in 2016.
“And so I think that it’s just shown this is a different Donald Trump than 2015 and 16. Lost the zip on his fastball. [He] has a sense of entitlement — all this stuff. Doesn’t think he has to go through and earn it like other candidates,” DeSantis said.
The last remark was a shot at Trump for skipping the GOP presidential debates. The former president was absent from the first and second debates and has said he plans to skip the third one despite being located not far from his Mar-a-Lago residence.
