Former President Donald Trump unleashed a fiery monologue against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Thursday evening after winning re-election with higher-than-expected margins in the Sunshine State.
In a statement sent by Trump’s Save America PAC to his supporters, the former president called DeSantis an “average” Republican governor with “great Public Relations.” The former president also took credit for DeSantis’s 2018 gubernatorial victory that earned him his first term as governor and honed in on DeSantis’s response to COVID-19 which has largely been credited as the move which propelled him to national recognition.
In the unprovoked attack, Trump also revived the nickname “Ron DeSanctimonious” in what appears the most extreme escalation between the two Florida Republicans to date.
Read the statement below:
“NewsCorp, which is Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and the no longer great New York Post (bring back Col!), is all in for Governor Ron DeSanctimonious, an average REPUBLICAN Governor with great Public Relations, who didn’t have to close up his State, but did, unlike other Republican Governors, whose overall numbers for a Republican, were just average—middle of the pack—including COVID, and who 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!”
Trump continued by saying that DeSantis was “desperate” in 2017 and that DeSantis “had low approval, bad polls, and no money, but he said that if I would Endorse him, he could win.”
“I also fixed his campaign, which had completely fallen apart,” Trump continued. “I was all in for Ron, and he beat Gillum, but after the Race, when votes were being stolen by the corrupt Election process in Broward County, and Ron was going down ten thousand votes a day, along with now-Senator Rick Scott, 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. I stopped his Election from being stolen…”
“And now, Ron DeSanctimonious is playing games!” Trump concluded in his attack on DeSantis. “The Fake News asks him if he’s going to run if President Trump runs, and he says, ‘I’m only focused on the Governor’s race, I’m not looking into the future.’ Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that’s really not the right answer.”
However, Trump wasn’t done bashing Republican governors and soon turned his ire toward first-term Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin in the second wave of rage-filled statements.
“Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I Endorsed him, did a very big Trump Rally for him telephonically, got MAGA to Vote for him – or he couldn’t have come close to winning. But he knows that, and admits it. Besides, having a hard time with the Dems in Virginia – But he’ll get it done!”
It’s unclear what provoked Trump’s comments against Youngkin but hours before the enraged message Virginia Lt. Governor Winsome Sears announced she will not support Trump’s 2024 bid despite supporting him in past elections.
“A true leader understands when they have become a liability,” Sears said. “A true leader understands that it’s time to step off the stage. And the voters have given us that very clear message.”
“I could not support him. I just couldn’t, because we have seen, for example, in those states where he has endorsed the candidates, in fact, Republicans on the same ticket who he did not endorse over-performed, whereas his candidates totally underperformed by as much as 10 points,” she added. “We have a clear mission, and it is time to move on.”
On Friday, Gov. Youngkin said he hadn’t seen Trump’s comments.
“I didn’t see it. And I have to be honest, I’ve been busy all morning. Listen, you all know me, I do not call people names. I really work hard to bring people together,” Youngkin said.
