What else does Donald Trump have on Ron DeSantis?

The groomer attack, in context

We’re roughly a year away from the first votes of the 2024 Republican primary season. And Donald Trump is calling Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a groomer. Yup.

This week Trump, uh, retruthed, a photo of a younger DeSantis with a group of girls that carried this caption: "Here is Ron DeSantimonious grooming high school girls with alcohol as a teacher.” To which Trump added sarcastically: "That’s not Ron, is it? He would never do such a thing!"

DeSantis worked at a boarding school in Georgia for a year before getting into politics; the New York Times reported in 2022 that DeSantis “hung out at parties with seniors.”

The story includes these lines:

Two former students, both women, remembered him attending at least two parties where alcohol was served, but they said that the parties took place after graduation and that they were not bothered by his presence at the time, although they question it now. “It was his first job out of Yale, he was cute. We didn’t really think too much about it,” one of the former students said.

There’s no evidence he was grooming them.

DeSantis, for his part, largely ignored the allegation. “I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden,” he said Wednesday. “I don’t spend my time trying to smear other Republicans.”

On one level, this is hugely unsurprising. Trump has shown — in both the 2016 and 2020 campaigns — that he views political campaigns (and politics more generally) as anything goes. You say or do whatever it takes to win. The ends justify the means.

After all, this is a man who called Ted Cruz’s wife ugly, who suggested Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, who spread rumors that Hillary Clinton wasn’t physically or mentally fit for office etc. There is, quite literally, nothing that Trump won’t do or say. We know that.

I was shocked by the attack for an entirely different — and more pragmatic reason: If Trump is starting off his attacks on DeSantis as a groomer this far from the election (and before the governor is even an announced candidate!) then what the hell is he going to be saying about him when the race gets more serious in 6 to 9 months time???

Traditionally, you hold your most stinging — and ethically questionable — attacks until the final days and weeks of the campaign, when the most people are paying attention and, therefore, the hit has the potential to do the most damage. (Also when you are less likely to be called out for them — either by the media or by members of your own party.)

It’s always hard to know why Trump does what he does. There’s been a long-lasting tendency to ascribe super-strategic calculations to his moves when, in fact, I would suggest that Trump is just, well, doing stuff.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume there is some sort of strategic calculation here. What could it be?

1. Trump is trying to scare off DeSantis. As I noted above, DeSantis isn’t in the 2024 race yet. Trump may be using the groomer allegation as a way to warn the governor what he, uh, has to look forward to if he runs. That this race is going to be an absolute hellscape and wouldn’t DeSantis rather just wait to run after 2024?

2. Trump is testing attacks. One of the things that we know Trump did in his previous campaigns is launch a series of varied hits against his opponents — and then waited to see which one landed with voters. “Lyin’ Ted” (about Cruz) and “Crooked Hillary” (about Hillary Clinton) came as the result of this weird workshopping process. That could be what Trump is doing again. He’s attacked DeSantis as a) a globalist b) a backstabber and now c) a groomer. Trump may be essentially conducting a focus group on which attack works best.

3. Trump is laying the groundwork. Another tried and true strategy is injecting things into the political bloodstream that he can then lean on later. As in, Trump is seeding the ground right now with the groomer story, hoping that it plants a seed of doubt in the minds of Republicans considering the Florida governor. And then, at some later date, he will water that seed and hope it blooms.

Is there method to the Trump madness? Maybe. But, man, it seems that starting off by calling your main opponent a groomer raises the bar for future attacks impossibly high. Like where do you go from there?