A conservative journalist claimed in a Tuesday column that he told Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ahead of the 2024 presidential race that he looked like a “p*ssy” for continuing to ignore attacks from former President Donald Trump.
Ryan Girdusky, a conservative journalist and activist, wrote in the Spectator about his experience with the DeSantis campaign when he was invited to Florida for a May 2023 event with other conservative “influencers.” Girdusky detailed his frustrations with the campaign structure and wrote that after being given an opportunity to offer DeSantis advice, the conservative journalist told the now-presidential candidate that he needed to start attacking Trump. (RELATED: Haley And DeSantis Bickered For 2 Hours, And Everybody Seemed To Hate It)
“You need to attack Trump,” Girdusky claims he said to DeSantis.
“You want me to attack Trump now?” DeSantis responded, according to Girdusky’s account.
“‘Yes, do you want my phone? You can tweet from my phone.’ I replied. Everyone laughed, but I was half serious,” Girdusky wrote.
“Trump had been attacking him for half a year, and I said, ‘The first time you ignore it, you seem honorable; the fiftieth time, you look like a p*ssy.'”
“I sank in my chair and thought, ‘I said ‘p*ssy’ in front of Casey DeSantis, my parents would be so embarrassed,'” the Spectator piece reads.
Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis looks at his wife Casey DeSantis at a campaign event at the Chrome Horse Saloon as Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) look on, January 14, 2024 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Girdusky continues to detail more of his experience with the campaign beyond the May event, adding that he was not a fan of the campaign’s decision to announce DeSantis’ run on a Twitter space. After being invited onto a call with other “influencers” in June to discuss how DeSantis could improve his campaign, Girdusky had an outburst about the direction of the race.
“After an hour of pacing and my anger growing, I went off. My voice even cracked at one point,” Girdusky wrote. “I said that the advance team was an embarrassment and should be fired, the messaging was all wrong, that doubling down to try to sound like an Evangelical when he was not an Evangelical would not work and his interview on the Christian show was embarrassing.”
Generra Peck, DeSantis’ former campaign manager, allegedly pushed back on the call.
“This is why the super PAC has nothing to work with, and they say it, you’re not discussing the issues. This is Ted Cruz 2.0,” Girdusky says he responded.
Ron DeSantis campaign signs sit in the back of a car outside a caucus site at the Horizon Events Center on January 15, 2024 in Clive, Iowa. Iowans vote today in the state’s caucuses for the first contest in the 2024 Republican presidential nominating process. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
In the last poll ahead of the Iowa caucus, DeSantis fell to third place, trailing both Trump and former United Nations Nikki Haley. Despite the grim outlook, DeSantis managed to take second, two points ahead of Haley and 30 points behind Trump. (RELATED: DeSantis Reveals Fate Of Campaign If Iowa Goes Worse Than Planned)
After half an hour, several media outlets, including the Associated Press and CNN, called the election for Trump. The early call, while some Iowans still were waiting to cast their vote, came under fire from the DeSantis campaign.