Trump Relentlessly Mocks DeSantis After Bungled Campaign Launch

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ much-hyped campaign launch was a shitshow, largely due to technical issues from Elon Musk’s Twitter Spaces. Donald Trump seemed to relish his opponent’s disastrous 2024 rollout, taking to Truth Social to mock the Florida governor while posting a pair of new attack ads. “Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER!,” the former president wrote. “His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!”

Trump also trolled DeSantis by congratulating Tim Scott for having “by far the best Presidential launch of the week,” while calling DeSantis’ a “catastrophe,” and posting a video of a SpaceX rocket, owned by Musk, collapsing and exploding with the words “Ron! 2024” superimposed on the fuselage. He even shared a video ridiculing the technical issues on Twitter by imagining a lineup of speakers including George Soros, Adolf Hitler, Dick Cheney, and Satan.

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The former president also appeared to reference the myriad of glitches that crippled DeSantis’ stream by crowing, very strangely, about his own social media platform. “‘Rob,’ My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working (TRUTH!), yours does not! (per my conversation with Kim Jung Un, of North Korea, soon to become my friend!).”

The dig was subsequently included in a press release from Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Trump also seemed to make fun of DeSantis’ fashion sense in response to the governor’s initial announcement video. “His collar is too big!” he wrote on Truth Social. “DeSanctimonious raised much of his money during his run for Governor, which in theory cannot be used for his current ‘escapade,’ and before his poll numbers tanked – and wow(!) did they tank!” Trump added in another post.

Trump then released two attack ads, one of which mocked DeSantis as a cheap copy of Trump’s own image and politics. “Why would we ever settle for Trump imposters?” asked the ad over a clip of DeSantis reading the former president’s “Make America Great Again” slogan to one of his children.

Trump has clearly singled out DeSantis as his primary rival in the battle for the Republican nomination, and the former president has more than just needling social media posts in his arsenal. As previously reported by Rolling Stone, advisers close to Trump say his intense promotion of fellow candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is a “total ratfuck” against DeSantis. Rolling Stone has also reported on Trump’s plot to “mindfuck” DeSantis by announcing a slew of Florida congressional endorsements as the state’s governor was in Washington trying to court them himself.

Earlier on Wednesday, Trump sarcastically congratulated DeSantis on officially declaring his intent to run. “I’d like to personally congratulate ‘Rob’ DeSanctimonious on finally announcing that he will be entering the race for President of the United States,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Hopefully he will get the full experience of being attacked by the Marxists, Communists, and Radical Left Lunatics of our Country, without which he will never know the kind of job he is doing. These Lowlifes & Misfits are far worse than the leaders of hostile foreign countries. They must be soundly defeated in order to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

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