Former President Trump attacked Florida Governor DeSantis' technical glitch when announcing his 2024 run, calling it a "disaster."
"Wow! The way DeSanctus announced on Twitter was a disaster. His entire campaign will be a disaster. Wait and see," former President Donald Trump wrote on the social network Truth Social on May 24, using the abbreviation of the nickname "DeSanctimonious" he gave to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Mr Trump's comments came after Mr DeSantis, 44, announced his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on the same day. The Florida governor announced his candidacy during a chat with billionaire Elon Musk on Twitter Spaces, Twitter's live audio streaming feature.
Mr DeSantis and Mr Musk's conversation experienced some technical difficulties, which Twitter explained were due to heavy traffic as nearly 400,000 people joined at the same time.
Mr. Trump, 76, also compared Mr. DeSantis to Republican Senator Tim Scott, 57. Mr. Scott announced the start of his campaign on May 22 in his home state of South Carolina and also had an accident on stage due to a microphone malfunction.
"Tim Scott's announcement, even with a broken microphone, was the best of the week. Ron's was a disaster," the former US president said.
Former US President Donald Trump speaks at Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida, on April 4. Photo: AFP
Trump's campaign also attacked the newly-minted Republican candidate. "Glitches. Technical issues. Uncomfortable silence. A total failure of a launch event," said Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman.
Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Make America Great Again political committee that supports Mr. Trump, affirmed that the former president is the right person to represent the Republican Party and win the election.
Meanwhile, Mr. DeSantis's team claimed that the technical glitch was a sign of success, causing "the Internet to explode." Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis's campaign, said they raised more than $1 million in donations within an hour.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks in Rothschild, Wisconsin on May 6. Photo: AFP
The Florida governor is considered a rising star of the Republican Party and Mr. Trump’s most formidable opponent in the primary election. One of Mr. DeSantis’s advantages is his youth, being in his early 40s. However, recent polls show that Mr. Trump is still leading, more than 30 percentage points ahead of Mr. DeSantis in second place.
The Republican Party currently has candidates: former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, 51 years old; former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, 72 years old; businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, 37 years old, and broadcaster Larry Elder, 71 years old.
DeSantis has said he is the only Republican candidate who can defeat incumbent President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in the 2024 election. Leading members of the Republican Party are expected to wait to see if the Florida governor adjusts his foreign policy stance, such as not showing support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.
Nhu Tam (According to NBC News, The Hill )
Source link
Comment (0)