DeSantis slams Trump over declining abilities: He’s “lost the zip on his fastball”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate far behind Donald Trump in the polls, seemed to suggest that the former president’s abilities were on the decline in remarks he made while campaigning in New Hampshire Tuesday, Mediaite reports. With him at his side, DeSantis said that New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu was right in saying that retail politics are about “being able to answer questions.”

“And what Donald Trump does now, he is wedded to the teleprompter. He can’t get off that teleprompter, any time he does, he says things like ‘Don’t vote.’ He’s telling people not to vote like we have all the votes we need. Really? Wait a minute, you lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016. You don’t have all the votes you need,” DeSantis said. “And so I think that it’s just shown this is a different Donald Trump than 2015 and 16. Lost the zip on his fastball, has a sense of entitlement — all this stuff — doesn’t think he has to go through and earn it like other candidates, and that’s just not going to fly in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

DeSantis went on to advocate for elevating a candidate who can win the general election, arguing that there are too many people who aren’t going to vote in Trump’s favor and naming third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a “another wrinkle” in the race. He also lamented Trump’s handling of the early COVID-19 pandemic and how he “created” and “elevated” former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci. The voters who are still frustrated with the government’s COVID-19 response, “I think they may default to Kennedy,” DeSantis concluded. “So I think he will hurt Trump way more than he would hurt any other candidate. And that makes it even a tougher uphill battle.”