Former President Donald Trump ripped into unofficial 2024 presidential contender Ron DeSantis in a lengthy statement on Thursday evening.
And Trump didn’t hold back, taking aim at the increasingly popular Florida governor over insufficient loyalty to the MAGA cause.
The ex-president took countless shots at “Ron DeSanctimonious” whom he called “an average REPUBLICAN Governor” that has “the advantage of SUNSHINE, where people from badly run States up North would go no matter who the Governor was, just like I did!”
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Then, Trump repeated a story—that he’s also been telling close advisers—about how back in 2017, he issued an endorsement for the Florida governor during his high-stakes 2018 campaign. “Ron came to me in desperate shape in 2017—he was politically dead,” Trump said.
“I then got Ron by the ‘Star’ of the Democrat Party, Andrew Gillum (who was later revealed to be a ‘Crack Head’), by having two massive rallies with tens of thousands of people at each one,” Trump said. In 2020, Gillum, found himself a party to “a meth overdose incident.”
Elsewhere, the ex-president accused DeSantis of “playing games” over not addressing if he intends to run for president in 2024.
“Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that’s really not the right answer,” Trump added, while mocking DeSantis’ continual dodging of the question.
A DeSantis spokesperson didn’t return The Daily Beast’s request for comment on Thursday evening.
The statement follows The Daily Beast’s reporting on how Trump’s orbit envisions the former president turning to personal attacks against DeSantis.
“Trump’s going to end up doing to DeSantis and his wife what he did to Cruz and his wife,” an adviser told The Daily Beast.
In his statement, Trump also said that he went “all in for Ron” when he ordered the FBI and U.S. Attorneys to stop the ballot counting in the 2018 Florida Governor race, allowing DeSantis a narrow win.
“I sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys, and the ballot theft immediately ended, just prior to them running out of the votes necessary to win,” he claimed. “I stopped his Election from being stolen.”
The FBI declined to comment and the DOJ didn’t return The Daily Beast’s request for comment on Trump’s claim.
