Reports that Donald Trump has been cooking up spicy new nicknames for Ron DeSantis have been exaggerated, the former President is asserting.
In a post on his Truth Social account Monday, the former President tried to knock down a New York Times story that accused him of calling the Florida Governor “Meatball Ron” and “Shutdown Ron” in private.
“All of the Fake News is reporting that I spend large amounts of my time coming up with a good ‘nickname’ for Ron DeSanctimonious, who is obviously going to give the presidential ‘thing’ a shot. They are all 100% wrong, I don’t even think about it — A very unimportant subject to me!!!”
The claim from reporters Maggie Haberman and Michael Bender was that Trump “has insulted DeSantis in casual conversations, describing him as ‘Meatball Ron,’ an apparent dig at his appearance, or ‘Shutdown Ron,’ a reference to restrictions the governor put in place at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.”
Trump trotted out “Ron DeSanctimonious” late last year, of course, and the former President still seems to like that sobriquet, though it is much lengthier than classic put-downs like “Little Marco,” “Lyin’ Ted,” “Low Energy Jeb,” and “Sleepy Joe,” punchy pejoratives for Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and President Joe Biden respectively.
Trump recycled “Ron DeSanctimonious” earlier this month, when trying to heat up a controversy with a re-truth on a post with text on an image stating, “Here is Ron DeSanctimonious grooming high school girls with alcohol as a teacher.”
The picture purportedly dates back to the Governor’s short-lived career as a teacher at a college preparatory academy, where he reportedly fraternized with students.
Trump has also workshopped other insults, including at the beginning of February, when he took to his Truth Social account to whack DeSantis as a “globalist” and a “RINO” (Republican in name only).
“Thank you. The real Ron is a RINO GLOBALIST, who closed quickly down Florida and even its beaches. Loved the Vaccines and wasted big money on ‘Testing.’ How quickly people forget!”
For his part, DeSantis is not engaging in kind.
“I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden. That’s how I spend my time. I don’t spend my time trying to smear other Republicans,” the Governor told a crowd in Ocala last week.
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