Someone leaked the candid 2018 debate prep video of Governor DeSantis to ABC News to try and make DeSantis look bad.

Some of it is heavily edited and it’s hard to know the full context of what DeSantis was saying, like the clip below:

I think some people want us to think DeSantis hated Trump in 2018 but wanted to hide it from Florida Trump voters, but I really don’t think that’s what is happening here. DeSantis had been endorsed by Trump and like any politician ahead of an election, he’s not going to highlight his disagreements with the man who had just endorsed him.

But again, this clip is cut up so much it’s hard to clearly know what DeSantis was really talking about here, so take it for a grain of salt.

In a separate 2018 clip, DeSantis is seen defending his desire to strongly hit back at false narratives being pushed by Gillum:

“It deserves to be hot!” I like this clip because it’s exactly what we want to see from candidates, to take command and passionately destroy false narratives from the left. And I think we’ve seen DeSantis do this constantly during his governorship.

I will point out that both Byron Donalds and Matt Gaetz publicly decried the release of these tapes from staffers:

I hope they are sincere and are not just saying this publicly to make it look like they aren’t helping Trump with his politics of destruction.