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By Katherine Fung
Senior Writer
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Conservative commentator Dave Rubin said former President Donald Trump thinks of his supporters as a "bunch of morons" after the Republican front-runner attacked a GOP rival over his pandemic record.
Trump addressed a live audience in Iowa on Wednesday night during a town hall event hosted by Fox News, during which he accused Florida Governor Ron DeSantis of supporting the nation's leading COVID expert, former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Director Anthony Fauci.
Using his nickname for the governor, Trump told Fox News anchors Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier: "If you go back and look at the records, you will see that the biggest fan of Dr. Fauci was Ron DeSanctimonius."
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Rubin, a supporter of DeSantis' White House bid, took issue with Trump's attacks on DeSantis, arguing that Trump must view his supporters as "morons" if the former president thinks they'll believe whatever he says, even if it contradicts what really happened during the pandemic.
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"This is some seriously dishonest bull****. And the fact that this official Trump account shared it is basically straight up evil," Rubin said in a Thursday post on X, formerly Twitter, in response to a clip of Trump's town hall that was shared by his 2024 campaign's war room account.
"And no, that's not me being mean to Trump, that's Trump telling his supporters he thinks they are a bunch of morons and can feed them anything."
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign via email for comment.
The clip posted by MAGA War Room has a community note that labels Trump's comments as "false," stating that DeSantis was actually "a leading critic of Dr. Anthony Fauci's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic" and acknowledging that Trump was the one who appointed Fauci to lead the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
"Trump has shown no regret over warp speed, he gave Fauci an award on the way out and he was pushing DeSantis to recluse Florida right before leaving office," Rubin said. "And yes, he would do it all over again since he thinks he did nothing wrong the first time."
Operation Warp Speed was the initiative launched by the Trump administration to facilitate and accelerate the development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and Trump has previously taken credit for the nation's vaccine rollout.
The former president also awarded Facui and 51 other people who served on Operation Warp Speed a presidential commendation on his last full day in office on January 19, 2021. Trump and DeSantis have criticized COVID policies while in office. DeSantis notably rose to national prominence during the pandemic over his refusal to implement restrictions in Florida.
DeSantis has ridiculed Trump for claiming that he doesn't know who gave Fauci the award, saying in September: "It literally says President Trump awards commendation. Is this the immaculate commendation or something like that? Did this just happen out of thin air?
"Give me a break, people need to take responsibility for their actions. They need to own what they did. And here's the thing that's important: Looking forward, you know, with me, all those mistakes will never be repeated again."
On Thursday, Rubin acknowledged that there was a brief time when DeSantis implemented a lockdown in Florida, but he gave the governor credit, saying "he has apologized for it and then led the charge for the free world to reverse lockdowns, mask mandates and vaxxes."
"There are plenty of good arguments to make for voting for Trump, I've made them on my show. But lying about everything, especially the most important things won't get us out of this mess. It's not how the nature of reality works," Rubin said.
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