As we worm our way closer to the election cycle of 2024, former President Donald Trump is taking aim at his biggest political rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Recently, Trump took to social media site Truth Social to smear his opponent, signalling he knows Desantis is a threat to his own campaign.
In a torrent of posts, Trump first shared a meme that purportedly shows DeSantis partying with high school girls. “That’s not Ron, is it? He would never do such a thing!” the former president said. The accompanying very blurry photo shows a young DeSantis with three women whose faces have been blurred out, and one holding what looks like a beer.
The meme says “Here is Ron DeSanctimonious grooming high school girls with alcohol as a teacher,” followed by a vomiting emoji.
DeSantis taught at Darlington school, one of the oldest and largest boarding schools from 2001-2002, according to The New York Times. This was right after he graduated from Yale University and right before he went to Harvard Law School.
The allegations of “grooming” and “drinking with students” have been covered by the Times as well. The photo was published by Hill Reporter, which is a Democratic super PAC blog. Two women said they saw him at parties but that it “took place after graduation and that they were not bothered by his presence at the time, although they question it now.”
“It was his first job out of Yale, he was cute. We didn’t really think too much about it,” one of the students said.
He also said “No Way?” on a separate post about the photo. Next is a shady-looking graph that claims DeSantis voted against “Trump’s Border Wall.”
“Wow, if I knew that I wouldn’t have Endorsed him (and he would have had to quit the race, down 35 points!),” Trump said on the post.
Finally, Trump shared a headline from a 2021 Tampa Bay Times story that said “DeSantis says he’s ‘glad’ violent Trump protesters are being arrested.”
Trump commented “What about ANTIFA & BLM, Ron?” For the record, the article was specifically about the protestors who rushed the capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Here’s what DeSantis said, according to the article: “I actually am glad to see some of these people being arrested from the DC thing, because I think the prosecutions will really make a difference. I think it was a really unfortunate thing.”
Regardless, it’s pretty clear that Trump views DeSantis as a legitimate political threat.