OAN’s Daniel Baldwin
12:30 PM – Thursday, May 25, 2023
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis kicked off his campaign Wednesday on a Twitter Space with Elon Musk. But for Team Trump, one thing was abundantly clear.
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“[Ron DeSantis] is not ready for primetime,” Liz Harrington, Trump campaign spokeswoman. “Who wants an artificial knockoff version when you have the real thing?”
DeSantis’s announcement encountered a rocky start. The initial Twitter Space, hosted on Musk’s official account, could not handle the surge of viewers. This caused listeners to get booted out of the session at random times. The audio repeatedly cut out in the first session as well. Harrington explained there was a clear contrast between Trump’s announcement speech in 2016 compared to DeSantis’.
“I think it’s a level of seriousness,” said Harrington.
“If you go back and watch [President Trump’s 2016 launch] speech, he’s the same person with real substantive issues that he delivered on in his historic first term. He’s never wavered. He’s never changed. And it’s so important, because it’s real. It’s something that he actually believes in. And it goes a long way. Things go well when you’re actually speaking from the heart, you’re being true to what you actually believe in. You cannot say the same thing for [DeSantis’] launch.”
Harrington says that while the DeSantis camp believed they were being innovative, they were actually copying Trump’s initial blueprint to success in politics.
“Who actually used Twitter to change electoral politics,” said Harrington. “That was President Trump. So there’s no groundbreaking there.”
During his announcement, DeSantis highlighted his ongoing battle with Disney, his handling to the COVID-19 pandemic, his fight against woke ideologies and more. Harrington argued that DeSantis did not sound authentic when putting forth his pitch to voters.
“It was scripted,” explained Harrington. “It was artificial, and it’s not real. And you couldn’t get a more contrast to President Trump who is real, but more importantly, delivers real results, not just for headlines, not just able to memorize anti woke talking points.”
She says that Trump is the only candidate to consistently release forward-thinking policy videos since the onset of the primary race.
“I hate this idea that [DeSantis’ announcement] was a policy-driven substantive launch,” Harrington continued. “President Trump has already put forward all of these substantive ideas. He’s been doing it for years. He’s totally transformed the Republican party to America First with innovative ideas on every issue when it comes from trade to the economy to energy independence and dominance to securing our border. President Trump revolutionized all of these things and got real results with actual common sense.”
Real Clear Politics polling average shows Trump up by more than 30 points nationally on the Florida governor. Harrington says she does not see DeSantis’ prospects improving the longer he stays in the race after seeing how his team handled his campaign launch.
“It reveals that it’s all people behind the scenes that are paid a lot of money, who think they’re geniuses in the political consulting world,” Harrington said. “And yet when it comes to reality and real results, it’s a disaster. It’s a train wreck.”
DeSantis is set to hold a May 30th kickoff event in Iowa. It will jumpstart a four-day trip the Hawkeye state, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.
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