Ron DeSantis: Trump Is A ‘Moron Who Has No Business Running For President’

If indeed failed, one-term former president Donald Trump and current Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis wind up facing each other in a battle for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, you can expect the battle to be contentious and nasty, filled with personal attacks and lots of shit slinging.

If you doubt that, consider what Trump reportedly thinks of DeSantis, whom he believes owes his political rise to the ex-president, and who eagerly slams the Florida governor in private:

Haberman also wrote that she had heard of Trump using similar terms to describe DeSantis. She also recalled learning from sources that Trump had called DeSantis “fat,” “phony,” and “whiny” while also taking credit for the latter clinching the governor’s seat in 2018.

It just happens that DeSantis has some choice words about Trump, too, according to a fascinating report from Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair.

In private, Sherman writes, DeSantis regularly derides Trump:

While DeSantis and the former president are already locked in a 2024 cold war, the smackdown has been unfolding off camera. According to a former DeSantis congressional staffer, DeSantis trashes Trump in private.

“He calls him a TV personality and a moron who has no business running for president,” the former staffer said. DeSantis tells donors that, if he takes on Trump, he would launch a full frontal attack on his record and competence, according to a GOP source briefed on the conversations. “DeSantis says the only way to beat Trump is to attack him head-on. ”

Such personal animus doesn’t exactly bode well for the GOP as they prepare for the 2024 election and attempt to retake the White House. Republicans are already facing an uncertain midterm election in November, and could be further weakened politically as they seek to restrict a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices in deep red states.

But if a Trump-DeSantis war winds up going public (and it would have to if the two run against each other), it could politically damage both men and leave the GOP even weaker than they currently are.

Watching the two men go after each other, however, would certainly be entertaining.