Donald Trump has laid a trap for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by focusing on actual policy issues instead of a culture war grievance and it's left the Florida governor in a "real pickle," according to a report.
Allies for both Republicans engaged in a war of words over Social Security and Medicare -- which Trump says he wants to preserve and threatens DeSantis would cut as president -- in interviews with The Daily Beast as the governor seemingly prepares to enter the 2024 Republican primary race.
“This is no longer the Bush Republican Party, and that’s a good thing,” said one Trump adviser. “We’re never going back. It’s also important to remember Donald Trump brought over almost 20 million two-time Obama voters to the Republican Party, so a very large chunk of the Republican base are populist voters, they’re not the fiscally conservative voters of the past. They care about taking care of their neighbors, they care about taking care of the elderly.”
DeSantis voted in favor of creating vouchers for Medicare and slowing cost-of-living increases for Social Security, as well as raising the retirement age for both programs, while he served in Congress as a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, although Trump's White House budget proposals included cuts to each.
“It’s sad to see the former president running a play from the Biden-Pelosi playbook and attacking a fellow Republican with Democrat lies,” said Erin Perrine, communications director for the pro-DeSantis PAC Never Back Down. “Governor DeSantis has been crystal clear that he will not touch Social Security, while Donald Trump clearly said during his unsuccessful re-election campaign that he would change Social Security.”
A former senior Trump campaign official and longtime GOP strategist said DeSantis was in "a real pickle" on the issue, because he must counter the former president's attacks over his past votes without angering the MAGA base.
“People forget we’re not in that old-school Reagan era anymore,” that source said. “The demographic has changed. So no, they don’t give a s--t about that anymore."
That former campaign official said the fact that DeSantis has already fallen into a political trap without even entering the race showed a real problem with the governor's potential candidacy.
“I just don’t know what DeSantis is doing," the former campaign official said. "This anti-woke ESG stuff, it’s not resonating with people. At the end of the day, most people can’t even afford to go to f---ing Disney, so why should they give a s--t?”
Another GOP strategist agreed.
“These are people who have not played in the big leagues,” the GOP strategist said. “So you’ve brought a bunch of rookie single-A players to a Major League Baseball game, and it’s very easy to talk tough on how you can hit a fastball on Twitter vs. real life. Well guess what, their boss is f---ing polling closer to Vivek Ramaswamy than Donald Trump right now.”
