Former President Donald Trump ramped up attacks on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week following recent tumult in the camp of his main Republican rival, including the abrupt Dec. 16 departure of the chief strategist at the “Never Back Down” Super PAC.
The increasing rancor between the former GOP allies comes as the pivotal first ballot in the 2024 presidential race in Iowa is less than a month away, with a new poll from CBS News showing Trump with a commanding lead over DeSantis and the rest of the Republican field.
“The Ron DeSanctimonious ‘team’ of misfits and grifters has largely quit his campaign to go on to greener pastures,” Trump wrote Tuesday on his platform Truth Social, echoing a term that he has used to needle DeSantis throughout the campaign.
In the post, Trump highlighted Saturday’s sudden resignation of Jeff Roe, who laid the groundwork for the DeSantis campaign in Iowa throughout the year.
The shakeup was foreboding as DeSantis trailed Trump by 36 percentage points in Iowa, even after the Florida governor toured all 99 counties across the state — setting up a critical first showdown with Trump just three weeks after Christmas, with DeSantis seemingly needing a miracle to win.
“It has been a terrible experience for them as they have watched their candidate fall violently from the sky like a wounded bird,” Trump continued in the post, adding that “Jeff Roe, his ‘chief strategist’ and head of his PAC, ‘Always Back Down,’ after having done major surgery on Ron’s wallet, couldn’t get out of town fast enough.”
Roe said he made the decision to quit the PAC after the group’s new chairman, Scott Wagner, made “false” statements about employees who were fired when he took the helm two weeks earlier.
Previously, Roe served as campaign manager for Sen. Ted Cruz’s failed bid for president in 2016, which gave Trump another opening to make further criticism.
“Now Jeff can spend full time…
Read the full article here
