Trump mocks Ron DeSantis after epic fail of campaign launch
Former President Donald Trump mercilessly trolled Ron DeSantis Thursday over his glitchy presidential campaign launch on Twitter — and even President Biden got in a dig.
After DeSantis stumbled badly in his long-awaited campaign launch, Trump derided his Republican rival as a disloyal GOP establishment retread or worse.
“I know Ron. The way he handled his announcement, he will handle the Country!” Trump wrote on his social media site.
Trump also posted memes ridiculing the failed announcement, which was badly disrupted by technical difficulties and veered into wonky chit-chat with Twitter boss Elon Musk even when the bugs were ironed out.
“Ron!” blared one video in an obvious effort to tie DeSantis to Jeb Bush, the onetime GOP darling whom Trump demolished in his winning 2016 campaign.
Even Biden, who usually avoids snarky internet jibes, took an unmistakeable jab at DeSantis in a Twitter post that included a hyperlink pitch for campaign donations.
“This link works,” the 80-year-old president wrote.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson was more charitable.
“It didn’t make the best first impression,” Hutchinson said.
DeSantis did put out a more traditional campaign launch video in which he took the odd step of changing the pronunciation of his own last name to DEE-santis from DEH-santis as he previously called himself.
DeSantis sought to reframe the flubbed launch by claiming Twitter organizers were overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response of supporters.
But even once DeSantis went live he showed off a less than inspirational speaking style, discussing such non-hot button issues as college accreditation while appearing to be reading robotically from prepared notes.
The launch was so underwhelming that it even gave controversial Rep. George Santos a chance to take the high road and try to change the subject from his legal woes and string of lies about his entire life story.
“It was clearly a missed opportunity,” Santos said in a Twitter space of his own. “Hopefully [DeSantis] learns how to use social media better.”
On the morning after the failed launch, DeSantis huddled with big bucks GOP donors in Miami, most of whom reportedly brushed off the glitchy announcement drama as normal campaign growing pains.
He launched a blitz on right-wing media, suggesting he would run as a more authentic and transformative conservative leader than Trump.
“On Day 1, we’ll be spitting nails,” DeSantis told radio host Glenn Beck.
But DeSantis refrained from directly taking on Trump, a strategy that he has stuck by for months even as Trump has ferociously attacked him and his poll numbers have plunged.
The Florida governor, who has scrapped a previously planned rally in his hometown of Dunedin, announced plans to appear in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina after Memorial Day.
He will seek to shift a widely held perception that he is an awkward and stiff campaigner, a jibe that could dog him in the early states where voters are used to experiencing one-on-one contact with would-be presidential nominees.