Pro-Ron DeSantis Group Launches Puzzling New Attack On Trump
A group backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has launched what critics have described as a confusing attack ad against former President Donald Trump.
In the 31-second spot, titled “Fight Democrats, Not Republicans,” released by the pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down over the weekend, the narrator urges Trump to “fight Democrats, not lie about Gov. DeSantis.”
The voice-over concludes by asking: “What happened to Donald Trump?”
Watch the video here:
Political commentators were puzzled by the spot and noted how nothing about Trump has really changed in regard to how he treats fellow Republicans.
The former president is deploying the same divisive and gaslighting tactics and rhetoric in his 2024 run for the White House as he did in his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
The ad follows a pro-Trump PAC’s “pudding fingers” spot taunting DeSantis and Never Back Down’s retaliatory “gun-grabber” commercial aimed at Trump.
Sunday on CNN’s “Newsroom,” anchor Jim Acosta suggested the new spot looked like something Democrats would run against Trump.
Democratic strategist Maria Cardona told Acosta the ad was “completely lame.”
“It was just kind of saying, ‘Oh, please, don’t attack me. Don’t do the same thing that the meanie Democrats are doing,’ right?” she said, noting it was “devoid of substance” and of “delineating what is wrong with Trump’s policies” because “there really is no difference” between him and DeSantis.
“And that’s their problem,” she added.
Twitter users noted how Trump attacking his opponents is really nothing new:
Can’t really do “Trump has changed so much he’s attacking Republicans” given what Trump said during the 2016 race about the previous three GOP nominees.
He attacked John McCain for being captured in the Vietnam War! https://t.co/r4e0G4xE6J— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) April 16, 2023
I am intensely skeptical of “why is Trump being meeeeean to a FELLOW REPUBLICAN” doing much, half his stump speech for 8 years has been shitting on Republicans pic.twitter.com/acnaJ4rMwi
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) April 16, 2023
Genuinely perplexed by the message in here. The central premise of this ad is that Trump is being too much of a meanie to DeSantis, which psychologically speaking, just makes Trump look like a strong alpha and Ron look like a weak beta, who is crying/whining about being attacked. https://t.co/4TiBNvLL7q
— Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) April 16, 2023