Donald Trump is taking great pleasure in the sagging political fortunes of Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and the former president’s chief rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Trump pronounced the five-week-old DeSantis campaign “DEAD” and said his poll numbers “are dropping like a rock heading to Hell.”
Trump also shared a number of polls showing him trouncing DeSantis in a number of states.
Naturally, the former president also took some potshots at the federal government over the 37-count indictment against him in the classified documents scandal as well as the ongoing investigation into his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social website:
It’s the second time in a little over a month that Trump has invoked hellish imagery in his feud with DeSantis.
In May, shortly after the Florida governor announced he was running for president, Trump shared doctored audio of DeSantis taking part in a conversation with the devil, Adolf Hitler and Elon Musk, among others.
DeSantis was once a Trump acolyte, even releasing an ad with himself and his wife fawning over the then-president as part of his gubernatorial campaign in 2018.
That changed last year as word got out that DeSantis was planning to challenge Trump for the presidential nomination. The former president stepped up his attacks on DeSantis, taking credit for the governor’s rise in Florida and claiming he cried as he begged Trump for an endorsement.
DeSantis has largely refrained from punching back.