On Sunday, many noted that Florida’s Ron DeSantis had yet to speak up about the news that Manhattan’s hard-left DA Alvin Bragg planned to indict Trump, possibly as early as tomorrow. That changed, with DeSantis making a masterful statement that attacked both the left and Donald Trump—and that succeeded in getting Trump to post a comment that is a giant, self-inflicted wound.
Yesterday, I mentioned DeSantis’s silence as part of a post that focused on Vivek Ramaswamy, the only Republican candidate (or presumed candidate) to speak to the larger principles at issue here. Others said nothing or hewed to the usual picayune political platitudes. However, during a press conference today, and in response to a specific question about the possible Trump indictment, Ron DeSantis finally had his say about the news, and he hit it out of the park.
In three minutes, DeSantis addressed the malevolence of Soros prosecutors, the legal principles at issue, and his own admirable record. He also threw in an attack against Trump that succeeded in triggering one of Trump’s famously self-harming counterattacks.
If you don’t want to watch the video, here are the key points DeSantis made:
Trump, the counterpuncher, did what he always did: He went on the attack against DeSantis. It was a foolish attack because it showed that DeSantis is living in his head, just as Trump has lived in leftist heads. It shows fear.
He began with a post implying that DeSantis has a secret gay love life:
Trump quickly deleted that post, only to expand on it:
No matter how one looks at Trump’s response, it was very, very foolish. Trump looked small and fearful. If there’s something secret about DeSantis’s sex life, let someone else dig it up. And to the extent that it’s probable that there’s nothing bad in DeSantis’s sex life, it was just…well, for want of a better word, nasty. People liked Trump because he was a happy warrior; there’s nothing happy about this attack.
Overall, DeSantis got the better of Trump in this encounter and managed to make himself look very, very good.
Image: Ron DeSantis. Twitter screen grab.