Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is now on the outs with Donald Trump, but you only need to look back to a campaign ad he made in 2018 to be reminded of what a YUGE, sycophantic fan he was when he was first running for governor.
The 30-second ad from August of that year is a bizarre attempt at humor featuring DeSantis’ wife, along with their 21 month-old daughter and 5-month-old son as the ultimate MAGA family.
It begins with a smiling Casey DeSantis.
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“Everyone knows my husband Ron DeSantis is endorsed by President Trump,” she says. “But he's also an amazing dad. Ron loves playing with the kids.”
Ron himself then appears, helping his daughter Madison add a cardboard block to a structure that Trumpians believe will protect us from an invasion of murderers and rapist across our southern borders.
“Build the wall,” Ron says.
In a voiceover, Casey says, “He reads stories.” And then Ron is seen pretending to read from Trump’s Art of the Deal as he sits in a rocking chair with little Mason in his lap.
“Then Mr. Trump said, ‘You’re fired,’” Ron says. “I love that part.”
Casey’s voiceover returns: “He’s teaching Madison to talk.”
Ron is seen with a placard, his finger moving from word to word as he reads aloud the Trump campaign mantra.
“Make… America…Great…Again.”
Still off camera, Casey adds, “People say Ron’s all Trump, but he is so much more.”
A beaming Ron appears beside a crib where Madison lies in a red onesie bearing the same MAGA slogan.
“Big league,” Ron says. “So good.”
Nine months before the ad aired, when DeSantis had not yet even officially declared he was running for governor, Trump endorsed him with a tweet while flying into Palm Beach on Air Force One for the Christmas holidays.
“Congressman Ron DeSantis is a brilliant young leader, Yale and then Harvard Law, who would make a GREAT Governor of Florida. He loves our Country and is a true FIGHTER!”
DeSantis was then running a poor second in the GOP primary. The endorsement helped put him in the lead, which he further boosted with the MAGA family ad and other efforts to make himself and Trump synonymous in voters’ minds. He became the nominee, but Trumpism even then only went so far, and he defeated Democrat Andrew Gillum by just .4 percent of the vote.
After becoming governor, DeSantis went from pretending to teach his kids MAGA to building his own brand by condemning what “woke” liberals were teaching kids in the state’s schools. He sought to co-opt the border issue by flying migrants from Texas to Florida and on to “elite” Martha’s Vineyard. He weaponized “you’re fired” by removing state attorney Andrew Warren in Tampa for announcing he would not prosecute people who violate state laws regarding abortion and gender affirming care for minors.
As he ran for re-election this year, DeSantis’ wife tweeted a video that is even more bizarre than the MAGA family ad—and not at all humorous. This one goes a giant step beyond Trump’s 2018 declaration that DeSantis is a “fighter.” The lone voice in this one is modeled after the late radio announcer Paul Harvey and sounds like something from on high in a biblical Charton Heston movie.
“And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a protector.’ So God made a fighter… God said: I need somebody who will take the arrows, stand firm in the face of unrelenting attacks, look a mother in the eyes and tell her that her child will be in school... So God made a fighter.”
This also features DeSantis’ wife, along with Madison and Mason and a second daughter, 7-month-old Mamie. But there is no mention of MAGA or Trump. There is only Ron and God and that voice from on high saying, “God said, ‘I need a family man, a man who would laugh then sigh and then reply with smiling eyes when his daughter said she wants to spend her life doing what dad does.’ So God made a fighter.”
Enough people were offended that the DeSantis campaign took down the ad. But he still won re-election by 19.4 percent of the vote, or 19 percent more than he had in 2018, before he added his own branding to Trump’s.
Meanwhile, the Trump brand had proven to be a detriment nearly everywhere. At least 15 candidates he backed lost. Two of the Senate candidates he endorsed—J.D. Vance in Ohio and Ted Budd in North Carolina—did win, but Mehmet Oz was defeated in Pennsylvania along with Don Bolduc in New Hampshire and Blake Masters in Arizona.
As more and more people suggested that DeSantis is the one who should lead the party in the next presidential election. Trump responded predictably. On the Sunday before the election, he made clear that he feared his onetime sycophant was becoming a threat, slipping in a one liner about “Ron DeSanctimonious.” The results at the polls nationwide made the fear a reality and Trump disparaged DeSantis and claimed that he sent the FBI and federal prosecutors to ensure his slim victory in 2018—a claim the Justice Department dismissed as just another Trump lie.
Some Trump supporters posted the 2018 ad from DeSantis, seeking to mark the MAGA family man as a traitor. In truth he has simply made himself into a rival brand—one that threatens to outsell Trump.
