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Donald J. Trump plumbed new depths of degradation in his savage takedown of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a yearlong marketing campaign of emasculation and humiliation that helped power one of many party’s rising stars out of the presidential race after only one contest and left him to select up the items of his political future.
In entrance of huge rally audiences, Mr. Trump painted Mr. DeSantis as a submissive sniveler, insisting that he had cried and begged “on his knees” for an endorsement within the 2018 Florida governor’s race.
In a collection of sexually charged assaults, Mr. Trump prompt — and not using a shred of proof — that Mr. DeSantis wore excessive heels, that he may be homosexual and that maybe he was a pedophile.
He promised that intense nationwide scrutiny would go away Mr. DeSantis whining for “mommy.”
Mr. DeSantis shied from fighting back, which solely inflicted extra ache on his marketing campaign. The governor had portrayed himself as one of many Republican Party’s fiercest political brawlers, however he pulled his punches in an important race of his life.
Now he’s each defeated and debased. His departure from the race on Sunday was a far fall from grace after opening his marketing campaign because the inheritor obvious in a Trumpified Republican Party. Rehabilitating that popularity as he considers his subsequent political transfer would require loads of restore work with donors and Republican voters, due to Mr. Trump’s ruthless parade of insults over 242 days on the marketing campaign path.
“I don’t care if he’s a Republican,” Mr. Trump mentioned of his belittlement of Mr. DeSantis at a November gathering of the Republican Party of Florida — the governor’s home turf. “We hit him laborious, and now he’s like a wounded falling chicken from the skies.”
But much more crushing was Mr. DeSantis’s response, or lack thereof.
After releasing a marketing campaign video in 2022 that made him out to be a political fighter sent from the heavens, he appeared both unwilling or unable to swing again at Mr. Trump or go on the assault. Even Mr. Trump’s aides have been stunned that the DeSantis marketing campaign didn’t go more durable on the former president on points the place he may be susceptible with conservatives, like abortion.
And the prickly nature of Mr. DeSantis’s character, which might present itself in an awkward mix of detachment, moodiness and facial tics, amounted to an irresistible goal for Mr. Trump, who appeared to relish bullying Mr. DeSantis as if he have been stuffing a freshman in a highschool locker.
Still, Mr. DeSantis stays fashionable in his dwelling state, and past Florida he’s seen relatively favorably. As a presidential candidate, he wanted to succeed the place each Republican earlier than him had failed: prying loyal Trump supporters away from the previous president with out alienating them.
Mr. Trump has lengthy trampled over the boundaries of typically accepted political conduct, relentlessly pushing the racist “birther” lie about President Barack Obama and urging supporters to lock up Hillary Clinton. But his marketing campaign hit new ranges of cruelty in opposition to a fellow Republican.
The missives have been typically led by Mr. Trump’s chief spokesman, Steven Cheung, who leaned into his background as a public relations operative for the Ultimate Fighting Championship to ship brutal slams with the power of the game’s suffocating guillotine chokehold.
In November, Mr. Cheung advised The Wall Street Journal that in Iowa, Mr. DeSantis would face “unimaginable pain that he’s by no means felt earlier than in his life.”
In a information launch, he solid doubt on Mr. DeSantis’s masculinity, saying that he walked like “a 10-year-old lady who had simply raided her mother’s closet and found heels for the primary time.”
Mr. Cheung additionally referred to the Florida governor as a “determined eunuch,” questioned why Mr. DeSantis would “cuck himself” in entrance of the whole nation — sexual slang that means weak point in a person — and accused him of trying to find “new sugar daddies” to fund his marketing campaign. He referred to as Mr. DeSantis a “disloyal canine.”
Mr. DeSantis fought again with a extra conventional strategy.
His marketing campaign rolled out a “Trump Accident Tracker” in a every day electronic mail to the information media that highlighted Mr. Trump’s missteps on the path. He criticized Mr. Trump’s “juvenile insults,” saying voters didn’t like them. (The eruption of laughter inside Trump rallies prompt in any other case.)
Mr. DeSantis finally tried to up his sport.
Responding to accusations that he wore lifts in his cowboy boots to appear taller, Mr. DeSantis questioned Mr. Trump’s manhood.
“If Donald Trump can summon the balls to indicate as much as the controversy, I’ll put on a boot on my head,” Mr. DeSantis mentioned.
The line didn’t appear to land. Mr. DeSantis himself has admitted that, not like Mr. Trump, he’s “not an entertainer.”
At the identical time, pro-Trump on-line influencers formed a troll army pumping out content material like movies exhibiting a person with Mr. DeSantis’s face being kicked within the groin. In comparability, Mr. DeSantis’s on-line operation proved haplessly inept.
The differing approaches stemmed, partly, from a fixation on Mr. DeSantis inside Trump headquarters, the place animosity for the governor ran excessive.
Not solely was Mr. Trump incensed by what he seen as a putting lack of loyalty from Mr. DeSantis, however the Trump marketing campaign additionally contains former DeSantis marketing campaign aides who had been fired or felt in any other case mistreated by the Florida governor, together with Susie Wiles, one of many former president’s closest confidantes. Many nonetheless had axes to grind.
“Bye, bye,” Ms. Wiles posted on Sunday on social media about her erstwhile boss, who had tried to blackball her from Republican politics.
The fast endorsement from Mr. DeSantis on Sunday might assist salve a few of these wounds. Hours later, Mr. Trump vowed that he would retire the “DeSanctimonious” nickname, and his allies started posting messages welcoming Mr. DeSantis again into the Trump fold.
But aides mentioned that Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis had nonetheless not talked.
Asked about whether or not the 2 males might restore their relationship, Mr. Cheung held his fireplace.
“We’re centered on New Hampshire,” he mentioned.
Ken Bensinger contributed reporting from Los Angeles.
