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
A super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ potential 2024 bid for president pitched its first attack ad against former President Donald Trump over the weekend, asking “what happened” to the former commander-in-chief.
The pro-DeSantis group Never Back Down launched the ad titled “Fight Democrats, Not Republicans,” on “Fox News Sunday,” targeting the 76-year-old Trump for his recent attacks on DeSantis, 44.
Trump, who launched a third consecutive White House run Nov. 15, is currently leading most polls by double digits over DeSantis, who is expected to officially announce his candidacy next month.
The ad opens by referencing Trump’s ongoing legal troubles.
“Donald Trump has been attacked by a Democrat prosecutor in New York. So why is he spending millions attacking the Republican governor of Florida?” the narrator asks, before adding: “Trump’s stealing pages from the Biden-Pelosi playbook, repeating lies about Social Security.”
Earlier this month in Manhattan, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Trump returned to the Big Apple last week for a deposition in the $250 million business fraud lawsuit brought against him and his company by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
A pro-Trump super PAC has been attacking DeSantis on air for weeks, most recently accusing the Florida governor of sticking his “dirty fingers” into senior programs — referencing a report that DeSantis ate chocolate pudding with his fingers while on a flight from Tallahassee to Washington in 2019.
“Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they don’t belong, and we’re not just talking about pudding,” the ad says. “DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements like cutting Medicare, slashing Social Security, even raising the retirement age.”
“Tell Ron DeSantis to keep his pudding fingers off our money.”
While the ad’s narrator speaks, footage plays of a man in DeSantis’ trademark navy blue suit and red tie scarfing down pudding with his bare hands.
Trump has repeatedly attacked DeSantis and accused him of trying to eliminate the social safety net via a series of votes on non-binding resolutions while he was a member of Congress from 2013 to 2018. The 45th president has also bestowed a variety of bizarre nicknames on DeSantis, including “Ron DeSanctimonious,” “Shutdown Ron,” and — reportedly — “Meatball Ron,” though Trump later denied he had ever or would ever use it.
Following DeSantis’ landslide re-election this past November, Trump dismissed him as an “average REPUBLICAN Governor with great Public Relations.”
Trump was leading DeSantis by eight percentage points — 47% to 39% — as recently as two weeks ago, but surged to a 57% to 31% advantage among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, a Yahoo News/YouGov survey shows.
In February, the former president trailed the Florida governor 45% to 41%.