Former President Donald Trump shared a series of Truth Social posts Tuesday going after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) with accusations of grooming high school girls when he was a teacher.
Trump, who is currently the only household name running in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, shared the series of posts within a span of seven minutes.
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In the first set of posts, Trump accused DeSantis of drinking with underage students while he was teaching at a school in his early 20s.
“That’s not Ron, is it?” Trump wrote, accompanied with a picture allegedly showing DeSantis with several women whose faces have been blurred out. “He would never do such a thing.”
A 2021 article from HillReporter.com makes the claims and cites an anonymous source. The claims were not corroborated by any other outlets, including the Washington Examiner.
The former president shared the picture again minutes later, sharing a post accusing DeSantis of “having drinks with underage girls and cuddling with them.”
Trump also went after DeSantis for voting against an immigration bill when the governor was serving as a member of Congress in 2018. The bill failed in the House 301-121.
“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 in a post.
Trump also reposted a picture of one of his tweets from 2018 in which he said DeSantis and now-Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) should be declared the winners of their races for that year, claiming ballots had shown up out of nowhere to change vote tallies. The picture had a caption on it that stated, “Dear DeSantis 2024 brothers, why do you hate Trump’s obsession with election fraud? Well, his obsession with election fraud saved your boy, DeSantis.”
DeSantis and Scott won their elections, and no widespread voter fraud was found. There is no evidence Trump’s tweet or actions affected the outcome of either the Florida gubernatorial or senatorial races in 2018.
The former president also shared a post that presented the headlines “DeSantis says he’s ‘glad’ violent Trump protesters are being arrested” and “Florida top state for people charged in Jan. 6 Capitol riot, research center says” with the caption “Wake up DeSimps!” from the original poster. Trump’s caption on the post was “What about ANTIFA & BLM, Ron?”
DeSantis, in comments quoted in the article from the Tampa Bay Times, had denounced violent rioting at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He also argued most protesters in Washington, D.C., that day were peaceful but that the violent ones should be prosecuted.
“I actually am glad to see some of these people being arrested from the D.C. thing because I think the prosecutions will really make a difference,” DeSantis said at a press conference in January 2021.
“Those folks who took it to the violent level, they need to be held accountable,” DeSantis added. “It was really, really a sad thing to see.”
DeSantis, who was reelected last November by nearly 20 percentage points, is widely seen as a contender for the 2024 Republican nomination, but he has not declared whether or not he will run for the White House. In various polls, DeSantis and Trump are clearly seen as the two top candidates for the GOP nomination.
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The Washington Examiner has reached out to DeSantis’s office for comment.
