Former President Donald Trump blasted Gov. Ron DeSantis ahead of his presidential campaign launch, declaring the Florida governor is doomed to fail in the general election after voting to overhaul entitlement programs.
Trump, who is the leading Republican presidential candidate, highlighted DeSantis’s support of legislation that hit Social Security and Medicare during his time in Congress:
“Ron DeSantis can’t win the General Election (or get the Nomination) because he VOTED TO OBLITERATE SOCIAL SECURITY, EVEN WANTING TO RAISE THE MINIMUM AGE TO 70 (or more!), VOTED TO BADLY WOUND MEDICARE, FOUGHT HARD, AND VOTED FOR A 23% “TAX ON EVERYTHING” SALES TAX,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump added that DeSantis “was, and is, a disciple of horrible RINO Paul Ryan, and others too many to mention.”
“He desperately needs a personality transplant, and, to the best of my knowledge, they are not medically available yet,” Trump added.
Trump-aligned super PAC, MAGA Inc, also slammed DeSantis regarding votes on entitlement programs, with one ad suggesting DeSantis has “pudding fingers,” which are “all over senior entitlement,” before noting he “voted to cut Social Security 3 times.”
As Business Insider noted:
As a congressional candidate, DeSantis repeatedly expressed support for Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposed overhaul to entitlement programs by privatizing aspects of Medicare and Social Security, as CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck uncovered earlier this week.
Congressman DeSantis went even further than that position. As Josh Barro wrote, DeSantis supported the even more drastic Republican Study Committee’s budget proposal that aimed to balance the federal budget in four years instead of Ryan’s decade. To achieve such cuts, as the Committee for the Responsible Budget detailed back then, required changing Medicare to a partially private system by 2019 and raising the retirement age to 70. It would have also increased the full retirement age for Social Security to 70 as well.
Another ad swipes DeSantis as “Ron DeSalesTax” and states he “had a plan to…. make you pay more,” to the tune of the nursery rhyme “Old MacDonald.”
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Trump also pointed out that DeSantis won Florida’s Republican gubernatorial nomination with the help of his endorsement.
“Look, Rob DeSanctimonious came to me asking for help. He was losing badly, by 31 points, to popular Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. He was getting ready to drop out of the race – He ran a terrible campaign! Ron told me he had one last chance, my Support & Endorsement, which Putnam, and everyone else, wanted also. I gave it to Ron, and the race was over. In one day, he went from losing badly to winning by a lot. With 3 LARGE TRUMP RALLIES, he WON THE GENERAL ELECTION in an upset. DISLOYAL!!!” Trump wrote.
Trump noted that DeSantis approached him for this endorsement with “tears in his eyes.”
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Trump should attack DeSanctimonious over who is funding him. He should highlight all the anti-MAGA / America Last RINO bundlers and organizations that created Ron’s warchest. He should also ask if Ron has resigned as Governor of Florida yet as Florida passed a piece of legislation called “The Resign To Run Act”