Fox News anchors were stunned when former President Donald Trump launched a lewd attack on his expected 2024 rival Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over his reaction to Mr Trump’s possible upcoming indictment.
Mr Trump has predicted that he would be arrested on Tuesday in the hush money probe conducted by the Manhattan DA regarding hush money paid to porn actor Stormy Daniels in 2016 for her to remain silent about claims that she had an affair with Mr Trump a decade previously. Mr Trump has long denied the affair.
Anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum spoke about Mr Trump’s jab against Mr DeSantis, with Ms MacCallum saying that it’s an important “moment in the battle that’s clearly ongoing between these two men who are the top two contenders, at least at this moment, for the GOP nomination”.
“Watch this from Governor DeSantis,” she said before showing a clip of the governor.
“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star,” Mr DeSantis said on Monday. “What I can speak to is that if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction and he chooses to go back many, many years ago, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponising the office.”
Mr Baier then said: “Well, soon after that, the former president went to Truth Social and fired back and his favorite name for the governor of Florida, Ron DeSanctimonious, he said, ‘will probably find out about false accusations and fake stories going on to say as he gets older, wiser and better known when he’s unfairly or illegally attacked by a woman or even classmates that are under age or possibly a man’.”
“And he continued. And he linked to this story he has linked to before,” Mr Baier added.
Mr Trump used a tweet from Meidas Touch to slam Mr DeSantis.
“Oh, good lord! Yes, we remember this photo of Governor DeSantis back when he was teaching,” Ms MacCallum said. “He spent a very short time teaching. And there’s a, you know, this photo that Trump put out there of him hanging out with some of his students.”
In February, Mr Trump shared content on Truth Social that implied that Mr DeSantis was “grooming” his students, a claim wholly without evidence.
“We’re in a surreal place right now,” Mr Baier said.
“Totally surreal!” Ms MacCallum added.
“Really surreal. And in the middle of this, you also have other cases that possibly could come to the fore. The case in Georgia, that is also in a grand jury,” Mr Baier noted. “You have the special counsel looking at not only the classified documents but the handling of January 6th. There’s a lot that’s bubbling up at this moment that could affect a lot of things.”
