Gov. Ron DeSantis has had quite enough of ex-President Donald Trump’s panicked smear attacks against him that came before the GOP Florida Governor even dared to announce a potential 2024 presidential bid.
Asked about the former president during a press conference on Wednesday, DeSantis gave one of his most direct replies yet about his strained relationship with Trump.
“Governor, former President Trump yesterday made a series of posts on TRUTH Social directed at you some were insinuating that…” a reporter asked. DeSantis replied: “I get it, I get you guys want the controversy.”
DeSantis said he spends time “delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden,” adding “I don’t spend my time trying to smear other Republicans.”
Trump has hiked up his attacks against DeSantis, calling him a “RINO GLOBALIST,” reusing the nickname “Ron DeSanctimonious,” and hinting that DeSantis is guilty of sexual grooming in a ‘ReTruth’ post to Truth Social on Tuesday. The attacks notably came just a day after DeSantis appeared to defend Trump.
DeSantis said he faced “defamatory stuff every single day I’ve been governor, that’s just the nature of it” and that “it just goes with the territory, you have to have a thick skin.”
Further shading Trump, DeSantis claimed that “practically speaking, I would not take time out of being governor to be fighting lawsuits, it’s just not practical.”
Describing DeSantis as “disloyal,” Trump took credit for the Republican’s popularity last week and said he wouldn’t have even been elected in 2018 without his approval.
“He had nothing! He was dead, he was leaving the race, he came over and he begged me, begged me, for an endorsement,” Trump said on The Hugh Hewitt Show.
“There were tears coming down from his eyes. He said ‘if you endorse me, I’ll win.’
“So I end up doing it, and he wins. They say it was like a bomb went off. Just a bomb totally went off. From the moment I endorsed him, he went from losing by numbers that were not catchable to winning easily.”
DeSantis, while not naming Trump directly, has remained considerably loyal, even defending the former president and striking out against media outlets who promoted the Russian collusion “hoax” as recently as Wednesday.
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