It wasn’t long following Governor Ron DeSantis‘s technical difficulties-plagued 2024 kickoff on Twitter that former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to begin mocking his political rival.
Just before 7pm on Wednesday, Trump wrote a bizarre message that took aim at DeSantis, but also incorporated his relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
‘”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, seemingly deliberately calling the governor by the wrong first name.
The former president was quick to enter the fray in mocking the less-than-smooth start to Ron DeSantis’ Twitter Spaces campaign announcement
In the lead up to DeSantis’ scheduled announcement, Trump posted two videos to Truth Social attacking the Florida governor.
In the first, Trump takes credit for DeSantis’ first gubernatorial victory and positions the politician as a MAGA-traitor.
The second video pushes Ron DeSantis as a member of the establishment class of politicians, and argues that Trump is the only candidate capable of standing up to establishment forces, as well as China and other US adversaries.
Former first son Donald Trump Jr. sent a tweet of an article that labeled DeSantis’ announcement a failure. He had tweeted earlier: ‘DeSantis is making JEB! look high energy right now.’
DeSantis’ highly anticipated presidential campaign launch began without a bang, as the Twitter spaces he was supposed to join with Elon Musk began 26 minutes late following severe glitches.
Musk at one point said the ‘servers were strained’ and the host blamed the glitches on the number of people tuning in, which he claimed were a ‘good thing.’
‘Just try and get it going,’ listeners could hear as it became clear frustration was growing.
Moderator David Sacks, a tech entrepreneur close to Musk, started the talk by claiming DeSantis was engaged in a ‘first is social media’ by ‘making history’ with the announcement.
The event, however, is more likely to be remembered for its series of glitches.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis officially entered the 2024 Republican presidential primary on Wednesday night with a Twitter Spaces discussion that malfunctioned for about a half-hour before the announcement could be made official
Don Jr. sent out a handful of tweets mocking the technical difficulties
Once the event was finally off the ground, DeSantis did confirm to the Tesla and Twitter CEO that he has entered the Republican presidential primary race just hours after filing the appropriate paperwork needed to launch a bid for the White House.
‘Thank you for putting up with these technical issues, we are definitely breaking new ground here,’ Sacks said when the event was up and running. ‘As far as I know, no major presidential candidate has ever announced their candidacy on social media in this way.’
Throughout the talk, DeSantis was able to promote his presidential platform for the first time as an official candidate to an audience of around 300,000 people, at times.
DeSantis also took a veiled swipe at Trump by claiming he will put an end to the recent Republican ‘culture of losing.’
Just one hour before the video was released, Trump got one more swipe in at the man assumed to be his main competitor.
‘I’d like to personally congratulate ‘Rob’ DeSanctimonious on finally announcing that he will be entering the race for President of the United States,’ he wrote.
‘Hopefully he will get the full experience of being attacked by the Marxists, Communists, and Radical Left Lunatics of our Country, without which he will never know the kind of job he is doing.’
Trump added: ‘These Lowlifes & Misfits are far worse than the leaders of hostile foreign countries. They must be soundly defeated in order to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’
Prior to campaign season, Trump and DeSantis enjoyed a good working relationship. Trump is now claiming that he is the reason DeSantis ever became successful and the Florida Governor is betraying him by running
Trump, for the moment, still holds a commanding poll lead over DeSantis – and all other 2024 Republican challengers
In response to the messy start to the Twitter Spaces announcement, Democratic National Committee spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement: ‘In true Ron DeSantis fashion, his presidential launch was quite literally not ready for primetime. Welcome to the race for the MAGA base, Ron!’
DeSantis is largely seen as the only candidate that might be able to give Trump a run for his money in the 2024 primary.
But Trump still holds a commanding poll lead over DeSantis – and all other 2024 Republican challengers.
The former president holds an outright majority, leading the field with support from 53 percent of Republicans in the latest CNN/SSRS poll released Wednesday, which puts his backing from voters at double that of DeSantis’ 26 percent support.
