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The emasculation of Ron DeSantis by the bully Donald Trump We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later. 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SAVE ARTICLES FOR LATER Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Share Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size 3 View all comments Advertisement Listen to this article 6 min Manchester, New Hampshire: Donald Trump plumbed new depths of degradation in his savage takedown of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a yearlong campaign of emasculation and humiliation that helped force one of the party’s rising stars out of the presidential race after just one contest and left him to pick up the pieces of his political future. In front of enormous rally audiences, Trump painted DeSantis as a submissive sniveller, insisting that he had cried and begged “on his knees” for an endorsement in the 2018 Florida governor’s race. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at a rally in Iowa before he pulled out of the race for president.Credit: AP In a series of sexually charged attacks, Trump suggested – without a shred of proof that DeSantis wore high heels, that he might be gay and that perhaps he was a paedophile. He promised that intense national scrutiny would leave DeSantis whining for “mummy”. DeSantis shied from fighting back, which only inflicted more pain on his campaign. The governor had portrayed himself as one of the Republican Party’s fiercest political brawlers, but he pulled his punches in the most important race of his life. Now he is both defeated and debased. His departure from the race Sunday (Monday AEDT) was a far fall from grace after opening his campaign as the heir apparent in a Trumpified Republican Party. Rehabilitating that reputation as he considers his next political move will require plenty of repair work with donors and Republican voters, thanks to Trump’s ruthless parade of insults over 242 days on the campaign trail. “I don’t care if he’s a Republican,” Trump said of his belittlement of DeSantis at a November gathering of the Republican Party of Florida – the governor’s home turf. “We hit him hard, and now he’s like a wounded falling bird from the skies.” But even more crushing was DeSantis’ response, or lack thereof. After releasing a campaign video in 2022 that made him out to be a political fighter sent from the heavens, he appeared either unwilling or unable to swing back at Trump or go on the attack. Even Trump’s aides were surprised that the DeSantis campaign did not go harder at the former president on issues where he might be vulnerable with conservatives, such as abortion. Advertisement And the prickly nature of DeSantis’ personality, which could manifest itself in an awkward mix of detachment, moodiness and facial tics, amounted to an irresistible target for Trump, who seemed to relish bullying DeSantis as if he were stuffing a freshman into a high school locker. Still, DeSantis remains popular in his home state, and beyond Florida he’s viewed relatively favourably. As a presidential candidate, he needed to succeed where every Republican before him had failed: prying loyal Trump supporters away from the former president without alienating them. Donald Trump knows how to get a crowd going.Credit: AP Trump has long trampled over the boundaries of generally accepted political behaviour, relentlessly pushing the racist “birther” lie about former president Barack Obama and urging supporters to lock up Hillary Clinton. But his campaign hit new levels of cruelty against a fellow Republican. The missives were often led by Trump’s chief spokesperson Steven Cheung, who leaned into his background as a public relations operative for the Ultimate Fighting Championship to deliver brutal slams with the force of the sport’s suffocating guillotine chokehold. In November, Cheung told The Wall Street Journal that in Iowa, DeSantis would face “unimaginable pain that he’s never felt before in his life”. In a news release, he cast doubt on DeSantis’ masculinity, saying that he walked like “a 10-year-old girl who had just raided her mum’s closet and discovered heels for the first time”. RELATED ARTICLE ANALYSIS US VOTES 2024 IOWA LANDSLIDE PROVES REPUBLICANS ARE ‘BUYING WHAT DONALD TRUMP IS SELLING’ Cheung also referred to the Florida governor as a “desperate eunuch,” questioned why DeSantis would “cuck himself” in front of the entire country – sexual slang that implies weakness in a man – and accused him of searching for “new sugar daddies” to fund his campaign. He called DeSantis a “disloyal dog”. DeSantis fought back with a more traditional approach. His campaign rolled out a “Trump Accident Tracker” in a daily email to the news media that highlighted Trump’s missteps on the trail. He criticised Trump’s “juvenile insults”, saying voters did not like them. (The eruption of laughter at Trump rallies suggested otherwise.) DeSantis eventually tried to up his game. Responding to accusations that he wore lifts in his cowboy boots to appear taller, DeSantis questioned Trump’s manhood. “If Donald Trump can summon the balls to show up to the debate, I’ll wear a boot on my head,” DeSantis said. The line did not seem to land. DeSantis himself has admitted that, unlike Trump, he is “not an entertainer”. At the same time, pro-Trump online influencers formed a troll army pumping out content including videos showing a man with DeSantis’ face being kicked in the groin. In comparison, DeSantis’ online operation proved haplessly inept. The differing approaches stemmed, in part, from a fixation on DeSantis at Trump headquarters, where animosity for the governor ran high. Not only was Trump incensed by what he viewed as a striking lack of loyalty from DeSantis, but the Trump campaign also includes former DeSantis campaign aides who had been fired or felt otherwise mistreated by the Florida governor, including Susie Wiles, one of the former president’s closest confidants. Many still had axes to grind. “Bye, bye,” Wiles posted Sunday on social media about her erstwhile boss, who had tried to blackball her from Republican politics. The quick endorsement from DeSantis on Sunday may help salve some of those wounds. Hours later, Trump vowed that he would retire the “DeSanctimonious” nickname, and his allies began posting messages welcoming DeSantis back into the Trump fold. But aides said that Trump and DeSantis had still not talked. RELATED ARTICLE US VOTES 2024 ‘TWO-PERSON RACE’: HALEY AND TRUMP FACE OFF IN NEW HAMPSHIRE Asked about whether the two men could repair their relationship, Cheung held his fire. “We’re focused on New Hampshire,” he said. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here. Save Log in, register or subscribe to save articles for later. 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