Florida Governor Ron DeSantis‘s oblique reference to Donald Trump supporters as “listless vessels” has roiled the GOP primary, prompting demands for an apology from Trump surrogates and escalating a growing feud with biotech investor Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been gaining ground on DeSantis in recent weeks.
“A movement can’t be about the personality of one individual,” DeSantis said in an interview with The Florida Standard, an upstart outlet run by a former Trump supporter that has ingratiated itself with the governor.
“If all we are is listless vessels that’s just supposed to follow, you know, whatever happens to come down the pike on Truth Social every morning, that’s not going to be a durable movement.”
DeSantis had previously used the “listless vessel” barb to describe President Joe Biden during his May campaign launch.
Trump surrogates immediately pounced on the comment, drawing comparisons to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 now infamous campaign speech comparing half of the former president’s supporters to a “basket of deplorables.” After an uproar, the former first lady apologized the next day: “I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong,” she said in a statement.
“DeSantis goes full-blown Hillary and call[s] MAGA supporters ‘Listless Vessels,’” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung wrote on X. “Looks like Ron DeSanctimonious just had his ‘Basket of Deplorables’ moment,” chirped Trump adviser Jason Miller.
In a statement, MAGA, Inc. spokesperson Karoline Leavitt called on the Florida governor to “immediately apologize for his disgraceful insult.” “To Hillary Clinton, Trump supporters are ‘deplorables.’ To Ron DeSantis, they are ‘listless vessels.’ The truth is, Trump supporters are patriots,” Leavitt said.
Trump press secretary Bryan Griffin denied that DeSantis’s comment was referring to Trump supporters but rather allies in Congress. “The dishonest media refuses to report the facts—Donald Trump and some congressional endorsers are “listless vessels.” Why? Because Trump and DC insiders feel he is entitled to your vote,” Griffin said. “@RonDeSantis believes your trust should be earned and has the vision, plan, and record to beat Joe Biden and reverse the decline of our country. That’s why Ron DeSantis will be showing up on Wednesday night to debate, and Donald Trump will not.”
In the interview, DeSantis did criticize Republican politicians who he said view support for Trump as the sole factor determining whether someone is a “RINO,” or “Republican in name only.” “You could be the most conservative person since sliced bread, unless you’re kissing his rear end, they will somehow call you a Rino,” he said.
Without naming any names, DeSantis cited “huge Trump supporters, like in Congress, who have like incredibly liberal leftwing records that [are] really just atrocious” and proceeded to tout his support from “people like [Texas] congressman Chip Roy, who’s endorsed me, [Kentucky] congressman Thomas Massie,” who he said “have records of principle.”
Republican presidential candidate and biotech investor Vivek Ramaswamy, who currently sits third in the polls, got into the mix on Sunday and wrote that “the real danger to our movement is the rise of ‘listless-vessel’ robot politicians who blindly follow the commands of their Super PACs.”
The jab appeared to be a veiled reference to a trove of documents posted by a firm associated with DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down ahead of Wednesday’s debate in Milwaukee. The memos, first reported by The New York Times, encourage the Florida governor to “take a sledgehammer to Vivek Ramaswamy,” even supplying him with the ready-made epithets of “‘Fake Vivek’ Or ‘Vivek the Fake.’”
On Saturday, DeSantis acknowledged the memo in an interview with Fox News, but said he hadn’t read it. “It’s just something that we have and put off to the side,” he said. And in a campaign memo obtained by Axios on Saturday, DeSantis’s new campaign manager seemed to disavow the strategy outlined by the super PAC, telling donors and top supporters that the candidate would focus on promoting “his vision to beat Joe Biden, reverse American decline, and revive the American Dream.”
The memo added that “we are fully prepared for Governor DeSantis to be the center of attacks and on the receiving end of false, desperate charges from other candidates and the legacy media.”
Jack McCordick
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