After declaring Donald Trump “missing in action” at last week’s Republican presidential primary debate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis followed up by taking shot after shot at the former president. He challenged Trump to a one-on-one debate, asserted the GOP front-runner’s political shortcomings “turned Georgia and Arizona blue” and accused him of hiding from the campaign trail, a criticism akin to one Republicans levied against Joe Biden in 2020.
And at his campaign’s online store – where DeSantis used to sell flip flops attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci and a sleeve of two golf balls proclaiming “Florida’s governor has a pair” – people can now purchase “Trump’s veto pen” for $7.8 trillion, a joke intended to draw attention to the Trump White House’s contributions to the national debt.
It’s all a part of a more aggressive approach DeSantis has taken in recent weeks, after months of dancing around whether to ignore or engage with the former president and as a fresh sense of urgency hangs over the race to try and slow Trump’s march to the nomination.
Driving this stepped up offensive are messages intended to convince Republicans that Trump is somehow unrecognizable compared to the figure who upended politics in 2016, nor the same person as the president who left the White House after defeat in 2021. Other 2024 hopefuls have similarly hoped to contrast Trump with his previous campaigns.
Noticeably absent, though, is any semblance of a clear frontal attack on Trump’s pending criminal indictments and civil lawsuits from DeSantis – even as Trump on Monday was seated in a Manhattan courtroom for a trial over his company’s alleged gross inflation of its assets. Instead, DeSantis targeted Trump over a 2016 campaign pledge to force Mexico to pay for a new wall at the border, calling it an “an empty campaign slogan.”
This new phase of…
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