Trump’s unusual taunts to rival DeSantis after Twitter Spaces fiasco

May 25, 2023 at 6:21 AM

Donald Trump launched a weird assault on Ron DeSantis after he formally introduced his presidential marketing campaign throughout a glitch-filled Twitter Spaces occasion.

The forty fifth US president sparked confusion with a publish on his Truth Social platform the place he appeared to intentionally name DeSantis by the flawed first identify whereas alluding to his “Red Button” and referring to North Korean chief Kim Jong Un.

His message adopted the Florida Governor’s formal announcement of his bid for the White House throughout a Twitter Spaces occasion with Elon Musk that began nearly half-an-hour late and crashed the app because of the excessive variety of customers tuning in.

“‘Rob,’ My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working (TRUTH!), yours does not! (per my conversation with Kim Jung Un, of North Korea, soon to become my friend!),” wrote Trump simply earlier than 7pm on Wednesday.

Political commentators reacted with confusion to Trump’s publish on social media.

Tweeting in response to the previous president’s feedback, conservative author AG Hamilton wrote: “DeSantis has been talking about detailed and substantive policy issues for the last hour.

“This is what you get from Trump. If individuals need idiocracy and leisure, Trump may be the higher possibility. If you need substance on the appropriate, DeSantis is it.”

Author and fellow at the Claremont Institute, David Reaboi, took to Twitter to describe Trump’s post as “Mentally disturbed”.

DeSantis is widely regarded as Trump’s most formidable rival as the two prepare to fight it out for the chance to take on Joe Biden as the Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election.

The formal announcement of his presidential campaign ended months of intense speculation about his intentions. In the moments before DeSantis’ announcement, Trump posted two videos to Truth Social criticising his rival.

The first saw Trump claiming credit for DeSantis’ first gubernatorial win in Florida and accused him of being a traitor to the MAGA cause.

The second paints the 44-year-old as an establishment figure and claims Trump is the only candidate capable of standing up to such powerful forces, including US adversaries like China.

Donald Trump Jr also took aim at DeSantis following his campaign launch. Referencing Jeb Bush, who his father vanquished in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he tweeted: “DeSantis is making JEB! look excessive vitality proper now.”

DeSantis’ Twitter Spaces event failed to begin at its scheduled start time of 18.00pm ET as the social media platform went into “meltdown,” according to billionaire Musk.

He said, “It’s actually going loopy”, quarter-hour after the occasion was attributable to kick off.