Donald Trump has lashed out at other high-profile Republicans after the failure of the predicted “red wave” in the US midterm elections, which has chilled enthusiasm for his promotion of extremist candidates and a possible new run at the White House.
At Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night, as Democrats had a better election than expected, the former US president was seen to be in a mood ranging from subdued to exasperated, but later in the week he became angry, attacking fellow Republicans including two popular governors.
On Thursday night, his target was the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, once a close ally but now seemingly an arch-rival for a presidential run in 2024, particularly after DeSantis easily won re-election over his Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist.
In a long diatribe on social media, Trump, astonishingly and seemingly spuriously, claimed to have abused his presidential office by sending in the FBI to stop what he called “vote-stealing” in Florida to swing the 2018 election in DeSantis’s favor.
“I was all in for Ron, and he beat [Democratic candidate Andrew] Gillum, but after the race, when votes were being stolen by the corrupt election process in Broward county, and Ron was going down 10,000 votes a day, along with now Senator Rick Scott, I sent in the FBI and the US 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,” Trump wrote.
He also used his new nickname for the governor: “Ron DeSanctimonious”.
There is no evidence of tampering with Florida’s 2018 election, nor of any federal intervention to stop any supposed irregularities. Trump continues to lie that Joe Biden’s victory over him for the White House in 2020 was due to widespread election fraud, a wholly discredited allegation.
DeSantis is widely seen as mulling his own run for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, a campaign that could pose the most serious challenge to Trump’s own White House ambitions. Trump has teased an announcement next Tuesday, with the widespread expectation that it will a declaration he is running again.
On Friday, Trump turned his ire on Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, who last year managed to win in a state that typically leans Democratic.
In a post on his Truth Social network, Trump said Youngkin “couldn’t have won without me” – even though at the time Youngkin distanced himself from the then president.
Trump wrote: “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!”
Trump, who has used anti-Asian rhetoric before, also began his post with a snide take on Youngkin’s name: “Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?)”
On Thursday, Youngkin’s deputy, the lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears, called Trump “a liability” for Republicans, and said if Trump ran in 2024 she “could not support him”.
Even Trump’s family members are divided about the prospect of him running for the presidency again, according to CNN. His eldest son, Don Jr, is reportedly enthusiastic about campaigning for him, but other members, such as his eldest daughter, Ivanka, are said to be fed up with Washington politics.
Trump also reportedly blamed his wife, Melania, for encouraging him to back the failed Senate campaign of Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, though he has since attempted to walk back the criticism.
The family will gather this weekend for the wedding of Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
