Donald Trump continues to try to goad Florida’s Governor into battle.
In the wake of extended denunciations of Ron DeSantis at a weekend rally in Waco and an extended interview on Fox News’ “Hannity,” the former President again offered familiar criticisms of his chief GOP rival’s shadow presidential campaign.
“Ron DeSanctimonious is being crushed in the polls. All of them, many globalists are having second thoughts. RINOs like Karl Rove, Pauline Ryan, and Jeb ‘Low energy’ Bush are beside themselves,” Trump contended. “They don’t know what’s going on.”
The former President turned his attention to polling data, which continues to generally show Trump again gaining at DeSantis’ expense, with the Governor seemingly unable to maintain the momentum he had after Election Day 2022.
“They have rarely witnessed a cratering of this magnitude. His polls are going down rapidly. Maybe they should have told Ron that trying to destroy Social Security and Medicare and having voted to destroy them three times is not a good thing to do,” Trump said, alluding to past policy positions DeSantis has since recanted.
“Also his record on the China Virus, crime and education is, despite his ever spinning PR machine, absolutely abysmal,” Trump added, alluding to arguments he has made about how DeSantis has been a “mediocre” Governor for those reasons.
DeSantis has not engaged Trump in any meaningful way despite months of pitched invective, and the former President has made critiques of the Florida Governor a centerpiece of his recent media hits and public appearances.
During the Fox News hit Monday, Trump claimed that without his endorsement, DeSantis would have never been elected Governor, and could have been relegated to working “in either a pizza parlor or a law office right now.”
He also claimed that DeSantis wrote him an endorsement, but the text needed a comprehensive rewrite.
“I said, ‘OK.’ I gave him a nice endorsement. I said, ‘You write out what you’d like and let me see it.’ He wrote it out. I thought it was terrible. I changed it and made it great. And I gave a great endorsement,” Trump contended.
The post Donald Trump rips ‘cratering’ Ron DeSantis as ‘crushed in the polls’ appeared first on Florida Politics – Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government..