The 1950 screen classic All About Eve follows a Hollywood star (Bette Davis) who realizes too late her career is being usurped by a young, ambitious ingenue (Anne Baxter). Is the same thing happening to Donald Trump? For months, the former president has watched as a brash copycat — Florida governor Ron DeSantis — has angled in on his 2024 presidential aspirations. Recently Trump has amped up his attacks on him, even giving him a particularly lame nickname. Now he’s basically blackmailing him.
As per The New York Times, Trump spent part of Election Day 2022 — when the GOP might make a comeback after embracing a leader who helped foment a violent attack on the Capitol building — doing what he does best: trash-talking his many enemies. That includes DeSantis, who’s threatened to steal his second attempt at re-election.
“If he runs, he runs,” Trump told journalists, trying to seem cool. The detente didn’t last long. “If he did run, I will tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering. I know more about him than anybody other than perhaps his wife, who is really running his campaign.”
What skeletons will Trump summon from the closet? Will they be worse than the recent NYT piece that made some unsavory claims about DeSantis’ brief stint as an arrogant high school teacher who partied with kids and argued with Black students about the motivations behind the Civil War? Or is it all Trumpian bluster?
Trump himself has spent ages declining to formally throw his hat in the ring for 2024 — although he’s been happy to tease the inevitable, over and over and over again. Then again, he might have to run for office from the slammer.
(Via NYT)