“...up until three days before his reelection, Trump had praised him as one of America’s great governors.”
That’s because Trump saw this ad, and realized that DeSantis wasn’t the next Ronald Reagan, he was the next David Koresh.
This ad is the origin of the Ron Santimonious nickname.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9oTBA-MvZk
I wondered where Trump got that, now I can see why.
That ad was awful. What was the DeSantis staff thinking? Fortunately, DeSantis was running against the worn-out, old warhorse, party-switching Charlie Crist, so it didn’t really matter.