opinion
Jeremy Redfearn, press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has come under fire for a comment about former President Donald Trump being in the “basement” when he was actually attending his mother-in-law's funeral.
Aside from the absurdity of equating Trump with President Joe Biden, Redfern's tweet had extremely unfortunate timing.
DeSantis' communications specialist suggested that while his candidate was campaigning, courting voters, and pounding the pavement, Trump, Biden and Nikki Haley were nowhere to be found.
“Current location of unnamed presidential candidates Ron DeSantis – Nikki Haley: Donald Trump’s basement: Joe Biden’s basement: Basement,” he wrote on social media platform X.
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Trump was not in his basement
The problem with Team DeSantis' jab isn't the harmless, if weak, attempt to criticize the GOP's top contender for the nomination. Rather, it was due to a complete lack of awareness of what is going on in Trump world.
Redfern's comment about DeSantis' political opponents being in the basement came on the same day Trump was attending his mother-in-law's funeral.
Former First Lady Melania Trump's mother, Amalia Knavs, died last Tuesday at the age of 78. Trump posted on the Truth Social website about the services provided by Knavs.
“The service provided by Melania's mother was truly beautiful,” he said. “I want to thank everyone for your prayers and best wishes!”
Related: Trump vows he will never allow the Federal Reserve to create a central bank digital currency
Redfern is burned
Needless to say, Redfern was outraged by the insensitive and ill-timed comments by the Trump team.
“President Trump was at his mother-in-law’s funeral when I tweeted this,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump’s re-election campaign, noted.
Kellan Dorr, who previously worked for the Trump campaign, also criticized Redfern.
“Bro, President Trump was actually at his mother-in-law’s funeral today…yeah,” he wrote.
This isn't the first time DeSantis' campaign has stumbled and stumbled its way into controversy, or DeSantis himself for that matter. He has to be careful who he advises, because that's probably why the campaign flounders so badly.
DeSantis left voters baffled after suggesting that the Trump administration “colluded” with Big Tech companies to bury the Hunter Biden laptop story, ostensibly causing him to lose the 2020 presidential election.
“I look back at Hunter Biden's censorship, which was a pretty huge deal that happened in the 2020 election, and yet that was Donald Trump's own agencies that were colluding with Big Tech,” he said. “I will never let that happen. I will fire these people immediately.”
DeSantis also intervened when he allowed the media to distort his “tepid ships” comment and joined them in the narrative that Trump could have done more to prevent January 6th.
Instead of acknowledging the poor timing of his social media post, Redfern decided to take another shot at Trump regarding the funeral.
“I'm glad Trump was able to attend his mother-in-law's funeral today and grieve with Melania's family,” he wrote in his response to Miller. “Unlike Gold Star families who were not allowed to receive full military honors for their loved ones at our national cemeteries in 2020.”
X host Tucker Carlson described people in DeSantis' campaign, especially those representing him online, as “the nastiest, most stupid, most zero-sum people” he's ever seen.
Redfern does little to dispel this claim.
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