Trump Reportedly Angry at GOP FL Gov. Candidate Ron DeSantis for Being ‘Disloyal’

Josh FeldmanSep 18th, 2018, 4:49 pm
 

You may remember that when President Donald Trump started questioning the Puerto Rico death toll of 2,975, Ron DeSantis––the Republican candidate for Florida governor––distanced himself from the President’s remarks.

“He doesn’t believe any loss of life has been inflated,” a statement from his campaign said.

After that, Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs raged at DeSantis and Rick Scott for, essentially, betraying the president.

And now it turns out Trump himself wasn’t particularly happy with DeSantis (whom he endorsed in the gubernatorial primary). Per Politico:

The president has told close associates in recent days that he views DeSantis — who won his Aug. 28 GOP primary thanks to Trump’s strong support — as profoundly disloyal for distancing himself from the president’s assertion that the Hurricane Maria death toll was inflated by Democrats for political purposes…

Trump views the former congressman as politically indebted to him, people familiar with the president’s thinking say, because he believes DeSantis owes his electoral success to him. The president has privately maintained that he was correct with his comments about the hurricane’s death toll, and has expressed frustration that DeSantis crossed him on the matter.

The DeSantis campaign said in a statement to Politico, “Ron DeSantis knows first-hand that President Trump honored all requests for Hurricane Maria relief and it is sad, though predictable, that Democrats are wrongly politicizing this issue and that the media is constantly trying to drive a wedge between the president and members of his own party.”

After DeSantis won the primary, Trump tweeted out his endorsement again:

[image via screengrab]

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Josh Feldman - Senior Editor

Josh Feldman is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Email him here: josh@mediaite.com Follow him on Twitter: @feldmaniac