Weak, small and reckless: how Ron DeSantis, Republican Napoleon, met his Waterloo

The Florida governor tried to outflank Trump on the right. Bad idea. Next to the former president, the devil with the best Republican tunes, DeSantis is a minor fiend at best

Ron DeSantis has revealed the next phase of his plan to win the Republican presidential nomination by firing 30% of his campaign staff. He has also dismissed a staffer, Nate Hochman, a prominent conservative writer, for creating a video that features a notorious Nazi symbol. A pro-DeSantis political action committee has used artificial intelligence to generate a video in which Trump's voice trashes the Republican governor of Iowa. A recent poll showed Trump ahead of DeSantis in Iowa by 27 points.

After his campaign declared he was entering his insurgent" stage as the underdog", DeSantis disappeared on a donor-provided private jet, his usual mode of travel. Several billionaire donors, however, previously enamored of DeSantis's electability", gave notice that they are jumping overboard without the lifeboat of another candidate. Rupert Murdoch withdrew his mandate of heaven, not so privately dubbing DeSantis a loser". Two DeSantis fundraisers in the exclusive Hamptons were scrapped for lack of interest and a third was poorly attended.