Trump Lashes Out at New York Post Over Profile on Ron DeSantis

Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas, on Aug. 6, 2022. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

The New York Post has come under fire from former President Donald Trump after it ran a lengthy profile of potential 2024 White House candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over the weekend.

The profile, which was published on Feb. 18, includes photographs of the governor as a boy enjoying baseball and fishing, as well as a headline with DeSantis’s talking point.

“People don’t want ‘agenda being rammed down their throats,’” DeSantis said, according to the article.

The seemingly positive piece prompted a heated social media remark from the former president and 2024 White House candidate on Feb. 19.

Trump took a similar path to how he spoke to the American People during his presidency, calling out the news media, saying the article was “fake news” and claiming the New York Post is “dying.”

“In writer Salena Zito’s fake news’ puff piece' about DeSantis, which supposedly appeared in the dying New York Post, which is way down in readership just like FoxNews is way down in ratings. Why doesn’t she mention that he wants to cut social security and medicare, loves losers like Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan, and Karl Rove, and it getting clobbered in the polls by me?” Trump wrote on Sunday on Truth Social.

“DeSantis is a RINO [Republican in Name Only] who is trying to hide his past. I don’t read the New York Post anymore. It has become fake news, just like Fox and WSJ!”

The New York Post did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’s request for comment.

The Post’s articles have seemed to show an affinity toward DeSantis over Trump in the past, even running a front-page headline calling the Florida governor “Defuture” following his last election win.

Just days later Trump announced his campaign for the presidency, and the Post noted it inside their print edition with a smaller headline on the front reading “Florida man makes announcement.”

Trump’s jabs at DeSantis have not been relegated to that article, however.

In the early morning hours on Feb. 18 Trump took to Truth Social to share his opinion of DeSantis’s treatment in the media.

“I will never call Ron DeSanctimonious ‘Meatball’ Ron, as the fake news is insisting I will,” Trump said around 1 a.m.

“Even though FoxNews killing lightweight Paul Ryan is revered by him, Low Energy Jeb Bush is his hero and always at his side, his beaches and state were closed for long periods of time, his testing, testing, testing for the China virus didn’t work out too well, and his loyalty skills are really weak, it would be totally inappropriate to use the word ’meatball' as a moniker for Ron!”

DeSantis’s office did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’s request for comment.