Former President Trump mocked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ 2024 campaign announcement Twitter space in a short video clip posted to TruthSocial.
The Twitter space, which began at 6 p.m. Eastern Time, was plagued by numerous tech issues upon launch. After getting underway, host David Sacks was cut off after speaking for about 30 seconds. The technical issues continued throughout the first launch of the space, with long periods of silence followed by brief, 30 seconds of audio.
The space — which was initially hosted by Musk — stalled out as it approached 700,000 listeners. A new space was soon started by Sacks, albeit with far fewer listeners.
Former President Trump was quick to mock the governor’s early campaign misfortunes in a brief video clip uploaded to TruthSocial. The clip began with a shot of Trump’s campaign announcement complete with Proud To Be An American before cutting to a snippet of a microphone echoing from the DeSantis Twitter space. It then continued to cut between shots of Trump’s announcement and the Twitter space.
Trump –who holds a significant polling edge over the Florida governor and the rest of the GOP field, according to most pollsters — also mocked the announcement while touting the capabilities of TruthSocial. “‘Rob,’ My Bid Red Button is bigger, better, stronger and is working (Truth!), yours does not!” (per my conversation with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, soon to become my friend!)” wrote Trump.
President Trump trolls DeSantis over his failed Twitter Space: “My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working (TRUTH!), yours does not!” 👏🏻😂 pic.twitter.com/nJA2pjvEyP
— Julia 🇺🇸 (@Jules31415) May 24, 2023
The formal announcement from DeSantis comes after months of speculation. Many political analysts had viewed the announcement as a formality, as the Florida governor had been traveling the nation, namely important GOP primary states, in recent months.
Still, former President Trump has maintained a sizable polling advantage. According to one recent poll from Rasmussen Reports — which was conducted from May 11-15 — 62% of likely GOP voters backed Trump. DeSantis trailed in a distant second with 17%, while no other candidate was able to garner more than 10%.