MSNBC's Joe Scarborough mocked Donald Trump for trotting out feeble attacks on his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hasn't even announced he will run for the 2024 nomination, but the "Morning Joe" host said Trump's attacks were already backfiring and elevating him to the same footing.
"While DeSantis is not in the race, if Donald Trump keeps attacking him on small, stupid things like this, it actually makes Donald Trump look more desperate every single day," Scarborough said. "So DeSantis not responding when he's not an announced candidate actually looks like a pretty good play because, you know, Trump can't even -- he goes from 'DeSanctimonious' to 'Meatball Ron' to 'DeSanctus' -- come on, that's not even good."
By workshopping one nickname after another from his public platform, Trump is signaling that he's worried about DeSantis, according to Scarborough.
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"A rule in politics, one of the first rules, especially if you're in a strong position, you don't punch down," Scarborough said. "Donald Trump, like you said, president of the United States, was president of the United States, you look at every poll, he's, I think, ahead in most polls in the Republican Party. Every time he punches down at a guy that's below him in the polls, a guy who wasn't president of the United States, a guy who doesn't have the following that Donald Trump at least once had, he's just elevating him."
"You know, when he starts talking about crowd sizes, that immediately takes you back to South Carolina," Scarborough added, "where he was supposed to have have huge rally, it ended up being something where, people, and, you know, Lindsey Graham, a couple of hound dogs. I mean, it just wasn't -- yeah, it wasn't happy people ... but anyway, yeah, it just -- it doesn't -- the strategy doesn't really make any sense, does it?"
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