Donald J. Trump plumbed new depths of degradation by brutally eliminating Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a years-long campaign of emasculation and humiliation that helped force one of the party’s rising stars from the running for president after just one election and leaving him alone. picking up the pieces of his political future.
In front of a huge audience, Mr. Trump portrayed Mr. DeSantis as a submissive crybaby, insisting that he had cried and begged “on his knees” for support in the 2018 Florida gubernatorial race.
In a series of sexually charged attacks, Mr. Trump suggested — without a shred of evidence — that Mr. DeSantis wore high heels, that he might be gay and that he might be a pedophile.
He promised that intense national scrutiny would cause Mr. DeSantis to whine “mommy.”
Mr. DeSantis hesitated to fight back, which only inflicted more pain on his campaign. The governor presented himself as one of the Republican Party’s fiercest political brawlers, but he fared well in the most important race of his life.
He is now both defeated and degraded. His exit from the race Sunday was a disgrace after opening his campaign as the heir apparent to a Trumpified Republican Party. Rehabilitating that reputation as he considers his next political move will require a lot of repair work with Republican donors and voters, thanks to Mr. Trump’s merciless parade of insults during 242 days of campaigning.
“I don’t care if he’s a Republican,” Mr. Trump said of his belittling of Mr. DeSantis at a November rally of the Republican Party of Florida — the governor’s home turf. “We hit him hard, and now he is like a wounded bird falling from the sky.”
But Mr. DeSantis’ response, or rather lack thereof, was even more upsetting.
After releasing a 2022 campaign video that cast him as a political fighter sent from heaven, he seemed unwilling or unable to turn on Mr. Trump or go on the attack. Even Mr. Trump’s aides were surprised that DeSantis’ campaign did not go further against the former president on issues where he might be vulnerable in the eyes of conservatives, such as abortion.
And the prickly nature of Mr. DeSantis’s personality, which could manifest itself in an awkward mix of detachment, mood swings and facial tics, made for an irresistible target for Mr. Trump, who seemed to enjoy bullying Mr. DeSantis as if he stuffed a freshman in a high school locker.
Still, Mr. DeSantis remains popular in his home state, and beyond Florida, he is viewed relatively favorably. As a presidential candidate, he had to succeed where all Republicans before him had failed: alienate loyal Trump supporters from the former president without alienating them.
Mr. Trump has long trampled the boundaries of generally accepted political behavior, relentlessly pushing the racist “Birther” lie about President Barack Obama and urging his supporters to lock up Hillary Clinton. But his campaign reached new levels of cruelty against a fellow Republican.
The missives were often led by Mr. Trump’s chief spokesman, Steven Cheung, who drew on his experience as a public relations agent for the Ultimate Fighting Championship to throw brutal slams with the force of suffocation of the guillotine of sport.
In November, Mr. Cheung told the Wall Street Journal that in Iowa, Mr. DeSantis would face “unimaginable pain that he has never felt before in his life.”
In a press release, he questioned Mr. DeSantis’ masculinity, saying he walked like “a 10-year-old girl who had just raided her mother’s closet and discovered heels for the first time “.
Mr. Cheung also called the Florida governor a “desperate eunuch,” wondered why Mr. DeSantis would “fuck himself” in front of the whole country — sexual slang that implies weakness in a man — and accused him of to look for “new Sugar Daddies” to finance his campaign. He called Mr. DeSantis a “treacherous dog.”
Mr. DeSantis fought back with a more traditional approach.
His campaign deployed a “Trump Accident Tracker” in a daily email to the media, highlighting Mr. Trump’s missteps on the track. He criticized Mr Trump’s “juvenile insults”, saying voters didn’t like them. (The burst of laughter at Trump rallies suggested otherwise.)
Mr. DeSantis ultimately tried to up his game.
Responding to accusations that he wore cowboy boots to appear taller, Mr. DeSantis questioned Mr. Trump’s manhood.
“If Donald Trump can get the balls together to show up for the debate, I will wear a boot to the head,” Mr. DeSantis said.
The line didn’t seem to land. Mr. DeSantis himself admitted that, unlike Mr. Trump, he was “not an artist.”
At the same time, pro-Trump online influencers have formed an army of trolls spreading content like videos showing a man with Mr. DeSantis’ face being kicked in the groin. By comparison, Mr. DeSantis’ online operations have proven woefully ineffective.
The divergent approaches stem, in part, from a fixation on Mr. DeSantis in Trump’s seat, where animosity toward the governor ran high.
Not only was Mr. Trump angered by what he saw as a striking lack of loyalty on the part of Mr. DeSantis, but the Trump campaign also includes former DeSantis campaign aides who had been fired or felt mistreated by the governor of Florida, notably Susie Wiles, one of the former president’s closest confidants. Many still had interests to defend.
“Goodbye, goodbye,” Ms. Wiles posted on social media on Sunday about her former boss, who had tried to exclude her from Republican politics.
Mr. DeSantis’s quick approval on Sunday could help heal some of those wounds. Hours later, Mr. Trump vowed to retire the “DeSanctimonious” nickname, and his allies began posting messages welcoming Mr. DeSantis to the Trump fold.
But aides said Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis still have not spoken.
Asked if the two could mend their relationship, Mr Cheung held his fire.
“We’re focused on New Hampshire,” he said.
Ken Bensinger contributed reporting from Los Angeles.