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Former President Donald Trump issued his harshest critique to date of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis following the governor’s colossal victory in the midterms on Tuesday night, referring to the rising star as an “average Republican” who commands no “loyalty and class.”
Released Thursday, the former president’s statement paints DeSantis (whom he referred to as Ron DeSanctimonious) as a puppet for establishment conservatives to wield against him and the overall MAGA movement.
“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,” the former president began.
Trump largely chalked the Florida governor’s popularity down to his anti-lockdown coronavirus policies, arguing that DeSantis “has the advantage of SUNSHINE, where people from badly run States up North would go no matter who the Governor was.”
As to how DeSantis became a rising star in the Republican Party, the former president attributed that to his endorsement of him in the 2018 midterm primary, arguing that the governor would have floundered politically without his support. Trump wrote:
Ron came to me in desperate shape in 2017—he was politically dead, losing in a landslide to a very good Agriculture Commissioner, Adam Putnam, who was loaded up with cash and great poll numbers. Ron had low approval, bad polls, and no money, but he said that if I would Endorse him, he could win.
