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Donald Trump has ramped up his attacks on Ron DeSantis in a series of social media posts in which he says the Florida governor is "dropping like a rock in the polls."
DeSantis has not officially declared a 2024 White House bid but for many, he is considered to be the biggest obstacle to Trump's presidential re-election campaign.
Despite this, the Florida governor has already faced setbacks. Last week, he lost the support of a second high-profile donor in two weeks when New York-based billionaire John Catsimatidis ruled out supporting DeSantis.
Speaking on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said: "DeSanctimonious had nothing to do with Israel or the moving of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. Never so much as mentioned it to me—It was the last thing on his mind.
"DeSanctus wasn't even Governor yet (It was December 6, 2017), and I barely knew him—He has turned out to be a total flameout! This is the kind of disinformation I thought only the Democrats would put out. No wonder DeSanctus is dropping like a rock in the Polls. Terrible!"
This was in reference to DeSantis saying he helped "cajole" the Trump administration into moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
DeSantis made this statement while in Israel as part of his overseas trade mission which has seen the governor visit Israel, South Korea, Japan, and the U.K.
In an attempt to highlight DeSantis' recent polling troubles, Trump also shared a CNN report with the headline, 'How bad is it for Ron DeSantis? He's polling at RFK Jr.'s level.'
This report was in response to a Fox News poll that showed DeSantis at 21 percent for the Republican presidential nomination race. This is similar to that of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a Democratic candidate with controversial conspiracy theories about vaccine safety, who is polling at 19 percent.
Trump also shared a Politico article that claimed DeSantis had proved to be underwhelming, according to Britain's business chiefs.
Trump has repeatedly attacked DeSantis for his record on dealing with COVID-19 and shared a Johns Hopkins Graph on his Truth Social post, in his latest attack.
Trump wrote: "So, explain. Why did Ron DeSanctus do a good job? Highly overrated. New York had fewer Covid Cases!"
The graph that Trump shared focussed on the total number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. as of February 27, 2023, broken down by state.
California came first, Texas second, and Florida third with over 7.5 million cases. New York came fourth with over 6.7 million cases.
Despite the regular attacks from Trump, DeSantis has repeatedly dismissed them without firing back.
In March, while speaking to Fox News's Jesse Watters, DeSantis described Trump's jibes as "background noise" and said he was focussing on his job as governor rather than his critics.
Newsweek has contacted Ron DeSantis via email for comment.
About the writer
Gerrard Kaonga is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter and is based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on U.S. ... Read more