A political action committee backing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has criticized former President Trump for his appearance at CNN’s town hall on Wednesday night, calling it “more than an hour of nonsense that proved Trump is stuck in the past.”
Erin Perrine, a spokesperson for Never Back Down, mocked Trump in a rack for focusing on “attacking DeSantis and lying about finishing the wall,” adding that “Trump still doesn’t know where he stands on key conservative issues like sustaining life and the Second Amendment.”
On Twitter, the super PAC echoed The statement from Perrine, who ran through some of the topics the interview focused on — including previous comments, the 2020 election and Jan. 6 — and asked “How is this making America great again?”
Donald Trump appeared on CNN for the first time since his election on Wednesday. He spoke, among other things, about the 2020 election, the subsequent Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, Tuesday’s guilty verdict over the abuse of writer E Jean Carroll and the war in Ukraine.
Ron DeSantis has not yet announced his candidacy for the upcoming 2024 election, but is seen as a likely Republican contender.
Trump appeared in a televised interview on CNN on Wednesday to discuss a number of issues
Ron DeSantis speaks at an event at the True North Classical Academy in Miami, Florida, May 9
In response to a question about government mandates for business, Trump lashed out at DeSantis, who is currently embroiled in legal clashes with Disney, which the Florida governor has labeled the “Magic Kingdom of awake corporatism.”
Trump said, “I think [DeSantis] just need to relax and take it easy and think about the future because right now his future doesn’t look very good.”
Chris Jankowski, CEO of Never Back Down, said in a statement after the interview, “A candidate who has lost its luster by appearing on a network that has lost its ratings.
“Both ignore an important fact: 2024 is not 2016. The old gimmicks and tired lines no longer work.”
Betfair still places Trump as the most likely Republican nominee, with 4/9 odds (about 69%) versus DeSantis’ 11/4 (about 27%).
Nikki Haley and Tim Scott have odds of 20/1 and 25/1 respectively.
For the election itself, President Joe Biden is still seen as the most likely candidate with odds of 13/8 versus Trump’s 5/2 and DeSantis’ 9/2.
Destructing the interview itself, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “I think it was a very irresponsible decision [to ‘platform such atrocious disinformation’].
She continued, “What we saw tonight was a series of extremely irresponsible decisions that put a victim of sexual abuse at risk… in front of the national public… It was embarrassing.”
The interview with Kaitlan Collins lasted 70 minutes and covered a number of bases.
Trump dropped a number of bombshells, called January 6 a “nice day,” insisted he had “every right” to bring classified documents to Mar-a-Lago, and declined to say whether he wanted Ukraine or Russia to war would win. would resolve the conflict within a day, saying the end of Title 42 would be a “day of infamy.”
During the interview, Trump also called E Jean Carroll a “fucker” for her rape allegations against Trump, for which a jury awarded her $5 million in damages for abuse and defamation.
At one point, in explaining why he brought classified documents to his Palm Beach home, Trump called Collins a “nasty person.”
He said he could have the documents under the Presidential Records Act, which Collins rejected.
“That’s not what the Presidential Records Act says,” she said.
Collins turned away and asked Trump to answer the question, to which he said, “You’re a mean person, I’ll tell you.”
Erin Perrine released a statement after the interview saying Trump was still ‘stuck in the past’
Spokesperson Perrine shared the statement on behalf of the super PAC on Twitter
‘I want people to stop dying,’ Trump said, insisting he resolve the war within 24 hours
Ron DeSantis has not announced whether he will run in the 2024 US election.
He embarked on a global trade mission in late April to represent Florida to the world.
Unofficially, supporters say the tour of Japan, South Korea, Israel and the UK was designed to bolster his foreign policy credentials before running for president.
DeSantis donor Dan Eberhart said the trip was timed to come just ahead of an expected announcement in 2024, when Florida’s legislative sessions end in May.
“This is a prologue to a presidential campaign. This is similar to what both George W. Bush and Jeb Bush did,” he said, naming two other governors running for president.