Axios boasted a big “scoop” Friday: what founder Mike Allen calls ex-President Donald Trump’s “Five-Point Plan” to ratchet up attacks on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
On Friday morning, the Axios AM newsletter boasted as its first “Big thing”: “Scoop: Trump’s 5-part plan to attack DeSantis.”
The intriguingly-sourced lede hints at the reliability of the very specific set of plans:
Former President Trump is convinced his attacks on Ron DeSantis are chipping away at the Florida governor’s support and confidence, sources and friends familiar with Trump’s thinking say.
So Trump is planning to amp up the attacks and name-calling in the coming weeks.
On Friday morning’s edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Allen ran through the plan for host Joe Scarborough and his crew:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Still has he still has above it. So tell us about Donald Trump’s plan to defeat Ron DeSantis.
MIKE ALLEN: Yeah, Joe, this is a great contest to see who can get in who’s head. So Donald Trump is trying to scare Ron DeSantis out of the race. He’s trying to rattle his self-confidence, his support. And that’s why he, according to conversations he’s having friends with, we’ve talked with, is going to be going after him, amping up the rhetoric. And Mika Joe, why this matters is that Trump thinks that Florida governor Ron DeSantis is the republican who is most likely to go the distance. He can imagine the Republican primary winding up as a two-person race. And so he’s trying to use his fear factor against DeSantis. And of course, you well know the reason a lot of those candidates aren’t attacking Trump is they know what will come at them.
And in the case of DeSantis, here’s what’s coming after him:
- Trump’s going to talk a lot about his past, talk about cutting entitlements, Medicare, Social Security, including when he was a congressman.
- He’s going to talk about the loyalty that he thinks that he should have for Trump, who was a big help in making him governor.
- Trump has been truthing, as he calls, tweeting on his platform, Truth Social. He’s been talking a lot about Paul Ryan trying to say that DeSantis is a lackey of the former speaker and shares his views.
- He’s going to go after, ironically, DeSantis to say that he was too cautious about COVID. Of course, largely the rap on the governor is the opposite.
- And fifth, Mika and Joe, he’s going to say that he’s waffled on Ukraine.
Now, as we do this contest of who’s in whose head. Governor DeSantis is not taking the bait. He’s brushing it off. His staff is not commenting. And the other day, Governor DeSantis dismissed what Donald’s saying, his constituent in Palm Beach, as background noise.
Watch above via MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
