We have been waiting for Trump to begin attacking DeSantis. Trump released a statement today in which he tore down DeSantis, hitting him from the left and the right.
Trump’s line of attack:
DeSantis is an “average governor,” with no big accomplishments.
DeSantis has proposed “massive cuts in Social Security and Medicare.”
DeSantis was terrible on COVID, including lockdowns. Yet Florida had high rates of COVID and COVID deaths.
On crime, Florida is one of the worst in the nation.
On education, Florida compares poorly to other states.
DeSantis leads the nation in Public Relations.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Let the pig wrestling begin!
Agreed
“Hardly greatness there.”
This is NOT Trump’s syntax or word choice. Not his usual toddler English. The tweet was clearly written for him. By whom? Stephen “Goebbels” Miller? Ninny McEnany? Stephen “Pigpen” Bannon?
Imagine The Idiot trying to keep two actual facts together in his head long enough to state them, much less a string of them. LOL.
Maybe it’s ChatGPT.
Haaaaa!!!!
Agreed, Bob. There is no way Trump wrote any of that. He may have said things similar, but it was too far thought-out to have come out of his stream-of-consciousness brain.
That said, I definitely had a little Schadenfreude moment from the notion that DeSantis and Trump supporters will divide the party.
Colon cancer calls out flesh-eating bacteria. Story at 9:00.
I’m in shock. Trump is actually speaking the truth. That’s what Democrats need to do. They should stop ignoring extremism and start defending and attacking as long as they do it with facts.
It’s amazing the strength of the psychological hold that a cult of personality can have on millions of people. Trump was right: anything he says or does will be rationalized by his cult followers. Trump will destroy the Republican nominee’s chances to win in 2024 if he isn’t that nominee. He doesn’t care: it’s all about him, all the time. When you get enmeshed with low character people like Trump, this is what inevitably happens, just as in every other sphere of human life.
And so few in the Repugnican Party recognize this!!!
Let the nastiness commence. Split the Republican Party….. Nice.
Traitor Trump has so many targets in both parties, even the few independents in government, that he wants to attack, seeking revenge, that it must be a challenge for his grain-of-rice sized brain being challenged with dementia to choose who to insult each day. And his insults are growing stale. He must have used up his limited three year old vocabulary already.
Somehow today’s lead was buried almost everywhere I’ve looked.
In a completely unhinged and despicable ALL CAPS RANT on his “Truth” Social platform, the former President of the United States, the de-facto leader of the former GOP (now a MAGA cult), and the odds-on favorite to win the Republican primary for a run at a second term, shouted:
“[ALVIN BRAGG] is a Soros backed ANIMAL who just doesn’t care about right or wrong no matter how many people are hurt. This is no legal system, this is the Gestapo, this is Russia and China only worse. Disgraceful.”
In one hour this rant received over 12,000 “likes”
I wonder if he would have called a white prosecutor an “animal.” Trump has a special animus against black prosecutors.
It is completely insane that the repercussions from this comment will not force him to drop out of the race. Instead, the feckless and spineless GOP will make excuses for him.
And let’s not overlook the anti-semitic “Soros” dog whistle.
Trump is a jackass and terrible in every respect, but Bragg actually was heavily funded by Soros. Soros (and/or his PAC) has been a huge funder of progressive district attorneys all over the country.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/george-soross-conservative-renaissance-district-attorneys-prosecutors-crime-recall-paaf-law-order-police-seattle-los-angeles-san-francisco-11658350969
Also, from several years ago (and he’s continued to do this since then): https://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/george-soros-criminal-justice-reform-227519
This, ladies and gentleman, was consciously written for public consumption. Can we all finally agree the “reasonable centrist” schtick is nothing but a mask covering up a white hood? Just like legislation designed to repress Blacks, LGBT, and others without ever mentioning them, this comment never once says Jew. But we know what Soros has become code for now. Sounds better than one of the many common slurs people use in private and more and more in public, I guess.
Soros has never funded anything that undermines democracy.
It is not a crime or a conspiracy to make a contribution to a political candidate.
George Soros is an honorable man.
Trump and the GOP hate him for one reason only: Jewish.
If funding candidates is grounds for criticism, let’s challenge the billionaires funding charters and vouchers and the crusade to turn the federal courts into a rightwing cabal.
They are undermining democracy.
Name one contribution made by Soros to any anti-democratic cause.
Just read the Politico article. Shocking that Soros would want to reduce racial disparities in sentencing. Is that undemocratic? No.
Soros underwrites democratic causes that do not make money for him.
He is a great man and a burr under the saddle of authoritarians and racists.
Compare him to Leonard Leo, who vetted every rightwing judge appointed by Trump and has spent millions building his anti-democratic machine.
Soros definitely funded progressive and liberal causes as well as Democratic candidates. Voting rights.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/01/04/nonprofit-financed-by-billionaire-george-soros-donated-140-million-to-political-groups-in-2021.html
FLERP!,
It’s your anti-Jewish innuendo that is so disgusting. You can’t actually cite anything wrong the prosecutor is doing except “be heavily funded” by a Jewish billionaire. You present it as if the mere fact of a Jewish billionaire funding a prosecutor makes them suspect, and you defended the antisemitic innuendo of Trump and his cronies. If the Jew Soros funds someone, they are bad no matter what they do. flerp! points out that the IMPORTANT thing there is that the Jew Soros is funding the prosecutor and well, the rest doesn’t need to be said, does it?
(There was a time when someone like flerp! would have known better to shut up when some prominent American Nazi party leader made a nasty reference to “Jew bankers” controlling the world. Today, if someone criticized that on thisblog, flerp! would no doubt feel empowered to point out that the Nazis are correct and that banker is Jewish. You don’t think we see what you are doing, flerp!?)
flerp! is too clever to come out and say that Alvin Brigg should be thrown into jail for trying to hold Donald Trump to the same legal standards everyone else is held to. At worst, Trump will get his day in court to prove he isn’t guilty, and flerp! is too clever to come right out and say right wing Republicans should be above the law.
So instead he uses anti-Jewish innuendo to make the point that any prosecutor “heavily funded” by a Jew like George Soros must be suspect. Clearly the prosecutor is evil because a Jewish billionaire funds him.
Contrast what flerp! does here — make the “funded by a Jewish billionaire” itself suspect, despite the actions of the prosecutor being perfectly reasonable — with what Linda does.
Linda points out someone whose ACTIONS are harmful to democracy – they are banning books or fomenting violent insurrection or making radical right wing judicial decisions that have no precedent in law – and then pointing out who is funding them.
flerp!, along with the right wing, is saying that the mere fact that one is funded by a Jewish billionaire makes one suspect, regardless of their actions.
Thank you GregB for calling this out.
Scary times. The empowerment of anti-Jewish paranoia to replace factual criticism of someone’s actions.
Bragg isn’t suspect because he took some action that flerp! criticized. flerp! actually won’t say Bragg’s prosecution of Trump is wrong because Trump is above the law. flerp! just wants to point out that the people who say Bragg is suspect because the Jew Soros funds him are 100% correct!
This kind of pre-fascist normalizing of hate is getting more and more common in this country.
I think they should have a duel like Hamilton …
Great idea!!
lol
This is the first concrete step Trump has taken that makes me think he would go third party if there were another Republican nominee.
I spent (wasted) so much time on a message board website—whose Florida section tilts Republican when politics comes up—arguing with people about COVID in Florida. Then about 2 years later, Trump comes out basically saying the few of us pushing back against the DeSantis praise-a-thon narrative there were right.
I’m confused about the politics of COVID.
Republicans oppose shutdowns, vaccines, masking and mandates.
Trump’s Operation Warp Speed developed vaccines in remarkable time.
Were the vaccines supposed to be avoided once available?
Kristi Norm called out DeSantis on lockdowns. He acts like he was against them the whole time when he wasn’t.
https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/south-dakota-governor-takes-swings-at-potential-2024-gop-rivals/
DeSantis was keen on getting vaccines to his likely supporters initially (seniors and more wealthy). The senior part I didn’t mind much at all given their risk. But there were stories of certain neighborhoods appearing to receive special treatment. Then when Biden got into the office and his admin as well as Dem governors, mayors and companies started passing mandates, he became anti-vax to contrast himself.
Kristi Noem….autocorrect
I preferred Kristi Norm. LOL.