The campaign for Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is firing back at COVID-19 barbs hurled by Donald Trump, trolling the former president for refusing to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci.
"Donald Trump became a household name by firing countless people *on television*," the DeSantis War Room campaign's Twitter account wrote, sharing a campaign video ad.
"But when it came to Fauci..."
The ad shows scenes from the Trump-led "The Apprentice," showing Trump repeating his famous "you're fired" line.
The ad then cuts to then-President Trump talking about how he cannot fire Fauci during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Fauci was a leading voice for the Trump administration's initial COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in March 2020.
"Today I walk in, I hear I'm going to fire him," Trump is shown during one of his 2020 pandemic daily press briefings. "I'm not firing him. I think he's a wonderful guy."
The DeSantis War Room campaign ad then turns to multiple interviews where Trump admitted he did not fire Fauci because of "a firestorm on the left," saying he was not "allowed to," and even Trump admitting that Fauci was a problem.
"Every time he goes on television there's a bomb, but there's even a bigger bomb if you fire him," Trump says in a TV interview in the ad.
"Frankly, you can't win that one; if I would have done it, I would have taken heat," the ad shows Trump saying in another interview.
Fauci retired just days before the Republican Party was set to retake control of the House majority — therefore taking the speaker and committee chair gavels for oversight.
DeSantis has famously called Fauci "an elf" who needed to be "chucked across the Potomac River."
"I'm just sick of seeing him," DeSantis said during a 2022 midterm gubernatorial campaign speech. "I know he says he's going to retire. Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac."
Trump has pitched an "Agenda 47" plan — named after the next president of the U.S. being the 47th — "to dismantle the deep state and reclaim our democracy from Washington corruption once and for all, and corruption it is."
"First, I will immediately reissue my 2020 Executive Order restoring the president's authority to remove rogue bureaucrats, and I will wield that power very aggressively," Trump said in his details campaign policy video, posted to Rumble this spring.