Former President Donald Trump is stepping up his attacks on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the latter appears to be moving closer to a presidential campaign against him for the GOP nomination — and a CNN panel on Wednesday laughed at the way Trump appears to be losing control of the situation with his former ally.
"Ron DeSantis is out there this week holding campaign-style rallies in three states, kicking off a national book tour with the release of his memoir next week," said anchor Jake Tapper. "Do you see this as essentially a soft launch for his presidential campaign?"
"It feels a lot that way," said commentator Margaret Hoover. "I mean, what do you, what do you do when you're running for president? Start to get your organizational fundraising capacity in order to write a book and finish your legislative session so you can announce afterwards, check, check, check. He's done all three. So it does have have the feel of it, and we know he is competitive with the former president in the polls."
"And I have to say, I mean if you go — speaking of Truth Social, if you happen to go there, which I did the other day and go on to Donald Trump's account, it's like every other post, Truth Social post, whatever they're called, 'truths' — every other one is attacking DeSantis," said Tapper. "Like literally every other one. Here is just one of them, quote, 'Florida was doing great long before Ron DeSanctus' — he says, because it's sanctimonious, he's saying DeSanctus — 'got there, people are fleeing from New York to Florida because of high TAXES out of control CRIME, not because of Governor DeSanctimonious. Rick Scott did great and even Charlie Cist had good numbers. SUNSHINE AND OCEAN, very alluring!!! So he's actually literally praising Democrat Charlie Crist, who lost to DeSantis 40-60."
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"I mean, I know, I mean, first of all that's probably the worst Florida tourism board announcement you could possibly have," said analyst John Avlon, to laughter around the table. "But beyond that look I mean you know he's obsessed with Ron DeSantis, he is because he's insecure about DeSantis taking his nomination away from him and so he's acting like a petulant child and lashing out on social, and it's a sign of DeSantis' relative strength that he can sort of play above it all while Trump is constantly lashing out looking for attention."
Tapper agreed, noting that it's interesting that the flip side of DeSantis ignoring Trump is that "he has not criticized" Trump either, and can afford to do so at the moment. "Is it also possible that it's just kind of an old act?"
"Yeah it's getting old, which is what — he can feel himself losing the audience," said Avlon. "I think the question is whether de Santis says silence is a matter of strength or whether it's part of a larger pattern we see from other would-be Republicans where — where they dance around Donald Trump for fear of offending. It's that fear of the base and fear of Trump that leads them to excusing the inexcusable. and until the Republican Party finds its spine, they're, you know, they're going to remain in trouble, they're gonna have to be willing to call it out directly."
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CNN panel discusses Trump's attacks on Ron DeSantiswww.youtube.com
