Less than 48 hours after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won reelection in a landslide in an otherwise worse-than-expected election for Republicans, his former political benefactor, Donald Trump, released an official statement Thursday bashing him as ungrateful, “average,” and accusing him of “playing games” with his potential presidential 2024 run.
If the tension between the two men hadn’t sufficiently become public before now, it will be impossible for both DeSantis’ and Trump’s advisers to deny now. It also shows in stark terms how a frustrated Trump views DeSantis as a rival for the presidential nomination, even as DeSantis has largely avoided criticizing Trump publicly.
The angry and wide-ranging statement relitigates 2018, when DeSantis first won the governor’s race largely thanks to Trump’s endorsement, complains about conservative media being “all in” for DeSantis and even resurrects the “Low Energy Jeb Bush” mocking nickname for one of Florida’s former governors who also ran against him for president.
