Trump vs. DeSantis: A simmering rivalry erupts

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis have been on a collision course from the start.

Eying the Florida governor as his most formidable foe within the Republican Party, the former president has sought to keep DeSantis in his place, often noting the role his endorsement played in lifting the relatively obscure congressman to the leader of one of America’s largest states.

DeSantis, for his part, has long praised Trump and mimicked his style, but has notably declined to put aside his own White House ambitions as the former president prepares to seek his old job again. In the clearest sign of tension, the two held dueling Florida rallies in the final days of this year’s midterm elections. At his event, Trump unveiled his new derisive nickname for DeSantis, calling him Ron DeSanctimonious.

The simmering rivalry between the Republican Party’s biggest stars enters a new, more volatile phase after the GOP’s underwhelming performance in what was supposed to be a blockbuster election year. DeSantis, who won a commanding reelection, is increasingly viewed as the party’s future, while Trump, whose preferred candidates lost races from Pennsylvania to Arizona, is widely blamed as a drag on the party.

That leaves Trump in perhaps his most vulnerable position since he sparked the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. As he moves forward with plans to announce a third presidential bid on Tuesday, Trump is turning to a playbook that has served him through decades of personal, financial and political turmoil: zeroing in on his enemies’ perceived weaknesses and hitting them with repeated attacks.

“This is how President Trump fights,” said Michael Caputo, a longtime adviser who worked on Trump’s first campaign.

In the days since Tuesday’s election, Trump has made racist remarks about Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, another potential Republican presidential candidate, saying his name sounds Chinese. He’s blasted coverage from Fox News, which, like much of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, has shifted its tone on Trump in recent days. But much of his vitriol is directed at DeSantis, a sign of the threat Trump perceives from the Florida governor.

In a lengthy statement, Trump knocked DeSantis as an “average REPUBLICAN governor with great Public Relations” and voiced fury that DeSantis has not publicly ruled out challenging him.

The approach recalls Trump’s strategy in 2016, when he cleared a field of nearly a dozen rivals with a scorched-earth approach that included insulting his thenrival Ted Cruz’s wife’s appearance and claiming that his father may have played a role in John F. Kennedy’s assassination. (Cruz later became a top ally in Congress.)

His attacks only become more ruthless when he’s finds himself against the wall. After the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, for instance, in which Trump used vulgar language to brag of sexual assault, he responded by inviting the women who accused his rival Hillary Clinton’s husband, the former president, of rape and unwanted sexual advances to a presidential debate.

“The strategy worked in 2016, no doubt about it. The difference now, and I say this with all respect for Ron DeSantis, he’s never entered the ring with a pugilist like Donald Trump,” said longtime Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, who ran his 2016 primary campaign. “Mike Tyson has an old saying: Everyone had a plan until you get punched in the face.”