President Donald Trump’s anger toward Ron DeSantis is rooted in the extraordinary level of political capital he expended on behalf of the former congressman, who was little-known at the time he began his campaign for governor. Here they are seen at a July rally in Tampa. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images White House Trump rails on top Florida ally over Hurricane Maria flap Republican Ron DeSantis accused of disloyalty for bucking the president.

President Donald Trump is privately lashing out at one of his top allies, Ron DeSantis, angrily accusing the Florida Republican gubernatorial nominee of publicly betraying him.

The president has told close associates in recent days that he views DeSantis — who won his Aug. 28 GOP primary thanks to Trump’s strong support — as profoundly disloyal for distancing himself from the president’s assertion that the Hurricane Maria death toll was inflated by Democrats for political purposes.


“Ron DeSantis is committed to standing with the Puerto Rican community, especially after such a tragic loss of life. He doesn’t believe any loss of life has been inflated,” the DeSantis campaign said last week after Trump tweeted that "3000 people did not die” in Puerto Rico.

Trump’s comments unnerved Republicans across Florida, which is home to a burgeoning Puerto Rican population, leading DeSantis and other Republicans — including Senate hopeful Rick Scott — to publicly break with the president’s remark.

DeSantis’s reaction, however, particularly piqued the president. Trump views the former congressman as politically indebted to him, people familiar with the president’s thinking say, because he believes DeSantis owes his electoral success to him. The president has privately maintained that he was correct with his comments about the hurricane’s death toll, and has expressed frustration that DeSantis crossed him on the matter.

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Trump’s anger toward DeSantis is rooted in the extraordinary level of political capital he expended on behalf of the former congressman, who was little-known at the time he began his campaign for governor.

The president — over the wishes of some advisers — endorsed DeSantis in the primary, flew down to the state to campaign with him and lavished him with praise on Twitter. DeSantis, in turn, tied himself closely to Trump, at one point even running a TV ad which featured his infant child wearing a MAGA outfit.

One person close to the president described the situation as a “divorce.” At the moment, Trump has no plans to travel to Florida to campaign for DeSantis in the November general election, according to two GOP officials familiar with the president’s schedule.

But others caution that the president remains eager for his party to win the governor’s race in the nation’s largest swing state -- and equally eager take credit for it – which could lead Trump to put the rift behind him.

“So yeah, maybe the president is angry, but he’ll cool off,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump advisor who lives part-time in Miami. “He knows Florida is more of a hospitable place for him in 2020 with DeSantis in the governor’s mansion than [Democrat] Andrew Gillum. President Trump needs DeSantis in 2020 just like DeSantis needs Trump in 2018.”

A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

The subject was already touchy for Trump, Caputo said, because he felt he had been “baited” into his remarks by critics who “dishonestly” compared the death toll of the exhaustive post-Hurricane Maria study to fatalities reported from other storms. The death toll counted in those other storms were far-less exhaustive and scientific than the one concerning Puerto Rico, noted Caputo, who has consulted in hurricane death and damages cases.

The DeSantis campaign didn’t deny that the incident created tensions.

“Ron DeSantis knows first-hand that President Trump honored all requests for Hurricane Maria relief and it is sad, though predictable, that Democrats are wrongly politicizing this issue and that the media is constantly trying to drive a wedge between the president and members of his own party,” the campaign said in a statement. “As governor, Ron will continue to work with the president through his reelection and second term to accomplish great things for Florida.”

Florida’s Puerto Rican population tops 1.1 million and exceeds New York’s in size. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but political consultants in the state estimate as many as 500,000 could be registered to vote among the 13 million active registered voters.

In recent years, Florida Republicans — led by Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio — have waged an effort to turn the normally Democratic-leaning group more Republican-friendly.

People close to DeSantis say the campaign was fully aware that by releasing last week’s statement they risked antagonizing the president.

“I would have wanted to take some of the air out of the statement — and it was mild — but in a state with the I-4 Corridor, where Puerto Ricans are moving to every day, DeSantis had no choice,” said Caputo. “He couldn’t deflate the statement about 3,000 Puerto Ricans dying in the storm and their relatives live in the I-4 Corridor and they vote.”



