MANCHESTER, N.H.—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis drew broad outrage over the weekend following his comments suggesting some Trump supporters are “listless vessels” in an Aug. 19 interview with a conservative Florida publication.
While the 2024 campaign for the Republican presidential candidate has since claimed the comment referred to “some congressional endorsers,” the comment has been widely interpreted by the Trump campaign and supporters as referring to all his supporters, drawing comparisons to former Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton calling Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables” in 2016.
“DeSantis goes full-blown Hillary and [calls] MAGA supporters ‘Listless Vessels,’” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, referring to Mr. DeSantis’s remarks made in an interview with The Florida Standard.
During the interview, Mr. DeSantis said, “A movement can’t be about the personality of one individual.
“The movement has got to be about what are you trying to achieve on behalf of the American people and that’s got to be based in principle, because if you’re not rooted in principle, if all we are is listless vessels that’s just supposed to follow … whatever happens to come down the pike on Truth Social every morning, that’s not going to be a durable movement.
“Unless you’re kissing his rear end, they will somehow call you a RINO.”
Mr. DeSantis’s campaign responded, saying the governor was referring to President Trump and his congressional supporters.
“The dishonest media refuses to report the facts—Donald Trump and some congressional endorsers are ‘listless vessels,'” DeSantis campaign press secretary Bryan Griffin wrote on X.
Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for President Trump’s Make America Great Again, Inc. took to X almost immediately after the interview, demanding an apology.
“To Hillary Clinton, Trump supporters are ‘deplorables.’ To Ron DeSantis, they are ‘listless vessels.’ The truth is, Trump supporters are patriots,” Ms. Leavitt said in a statement, referring to a notorious comment by Ms. Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign when the then-Democratic nominee called her Republican rival’s supporters a “basket of deplorables” who were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it.”
Jason Miller, an adviser to President Trump, wrote on X, “Looks like Ron DeSanctimonious just had his ‘Basket of Deplorables’ moment.”
