Two more Trump World attacks on DeSantis

Is the governor betting on "normal" over "crazy" and is this a good bet?

Yesterday I discussed how Donald Trump is attacking Ron DeSantis for once having supported reforms to Social Security and Medicare that Trump, too, once supported. Today I want to discuss two other attacks launched by Trump World against the Florida governor.

The first accuses DeSantis of “grooming” teenage girls. Trump leveled this charge by reposting a photo on Truth Social showing what appears to be a young DeSantis smiling alongside three young women whose faces are blurred. Bold text on the photo reads: "Here is Ron DeSantimonious grooming high school girls with alcohol as a teacher," followed by a vomit emoji. Trump added, sarcastically: “That’s not Ron, is it? He would never do such a thing!"

Reportedly, the photo in question was taken after the 2001-02 academic year when DeSantis was a teacher at a private day and boarding school in Georgia. There is evidence that DeSantis, who had just graduated from Harvard as an undergrad, attended parties with students at the school. However, I’ve seen no evidence that he “groomed” anyone for sex.

By contrast, Trump has bragged about sexually assaulting women. And he was a long-time friend of Jeffrey Epstein, a predator of underage girls whom Trump called a “terrific guy” who was “a lot of fun to be with.”

We don’t know whether Trump used Epstein’s services, and therefore shouldn’t assume he did. But we can be pretty sure what Trump would say about a political opponent who had associated with and praised Epstein the way he did.

The second attack on DeSantis comes from key Trump World figures, and is more interesting to me. It’s based on the fact that Libby Locke spoke at a conference the governor hosted about the damaging impact of defamation from the legacy media — a Trumpian theme. In introducing Locke, DeSantis praised her as an “an extraordinaire when it comes to First Amendment defamation.”

Locke is, indeed, an expert in this area of the law. She has represented conservative targets of the legacy media including Sarah Palin in her suit against the New York Times and Project Veritas in actions against the Times and Stanford University.

However, Locke also represents Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Trump allies Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Mike Lindell for defaming the company with allegations that their machines helped “steal” the 2020 election from Trump.

In my view, there’s nothing problematic about that representation. From all that appears, the allegations of wrongdoing against Dominion have no basis in fact. Indeed, a company the Trump campaign hired to conduct a forensic inquiry into voting fraud and irregularities in 2020 reportedly refuted claims that Dominion machines manipulated outcomes. And One America News Network, Newsmax, and Fox have distanced themselves from key allegations against Dominion.

A business has as much right as a public figure to complain in court about defamation. The fact that the public figures support Trump and were parroting his talking point shouldn’t matter.

That’s basic. The interesting question is whether DeSantis will be hurt by having hosted and praised Libby Locke.

Erick Erickson believes this will actually help DeSantis. He points out that most Republican voters tell pollsters they don’t want to hear about the 2020 election. Instead, they are inclined to favor candidates who talk about the present and the future.

By inviting Locke to his event and praising her, DeSantis may cause Trump to keep talking about 2020 (not that he needs much encouragement) and to do so by pressing what might be his least plausible claim of election fraud.

Erickson’s premises are correct, but I’m not sure his conclusion is. I don’t doubt that most Republican voters prefer not to keep hearing about 2020. But this doesn’t mean they want to celebrate a lawyer who is suing Trump World personages.

Erickson quotes Sarah Sanders’ response to the State of Union address in which she said the fundamental clash these days is between normal and crazy. By hosting and praising Locke, who is suing people for crazy-seeming defamatory statements, Erickson sees DeSantis as aligning himself with normal and betting that this is what Republican voters want.

Time will tell whether that’s a sound bet.