As conservatives turn their fire on former President Donald Trump after a disappointing midterm night, he is lashing out at one of the Republican Party’s stars.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is receiving a lot of attention and speculation about a potential 2024 presidential bid after his blowout victory in his reelection campaign.
And the former president is lashing out at his potential 2024 rival — despite DeSantis… not doing anything except winning.
In a post on his Truth Social platform that was also blasted out in an email, Trump wrote, “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.”
NEW: Trump goes postal on DeSantis ? pic.twitter.com/WoXM0AEY2S
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 10, 2022
It’s not clear what Trump was referring to when he claimed DeSantis shut down Florida in a way other Republican governors did not.
Perhaps he was trying to say Florida was slow to end its shutdown. And Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) did move to re-open quickly — but he was criticized by Trump at the time. But Florida has been one of the most open states throughout the pandemic.
And that is also not what his statement says. Instead, the statement appears to imply that there were Republicans who did not shut down any part of their state.
Trump went on to claim credit for DeSantis’ primary victory when he first ran for governor. And then he dropped another rather bizarre claim about sending FBI and Justice Department officials to Florida in 2018 allegedly to stop fraud from taking place while votes were being counted.
“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,” he wrote.
And here’s where we get to the crux of the matter. Trump wrote, “And now, Ron DeSanctimonious is playing games! 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…”
In other words, he is upset that DeSantis is refusing to agree to clear the path for him to run again. But that is not how our system is supposed to work. We are not supposed to have coronations — especially for sore losers. That is how we get bad policies and bad leaders.
Trump also seemed to attack Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) as he wrote, “Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me. 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!” he added.
What exactly is the point of this? Aside from soothing his bruised ego, attacking the up-and-coming stars of the party and trying to tarnish their reputations does not benefit him. In fact, it might backfire if they just keep their heads down and keep putting wins on the board while he screams into the void.
These attacks do not help anything. Republicans are not happy with Trump after their losses in 2018 and the loss of the Senate and presidency in 2020. And now they are very disappointed after a midterm election where it is really up in the air which party will control Congress — despite a political environment that should have led to a red wave.
Attacking Republican stars who actually won their reelection bids and governed conservatively will not help rehabilitate Trump’s badly damaged standing in the party.
