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FORT MYERS, Fla. – Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis gifted President Trump a coin Friday with a defiant message to his would-be killers ahead of a rally in the Sunshine State.
The custom gold challenge coin depicts the smiling president flipping the bird and bears the engraved message: “You missed bitches.”
Trump miraculously escaped serious harm when a gunman opened fire at July 2024 rally in Butler, Pa., grazing the president’s ear. A second assassination attempt – at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., in September 2024 – was thwarted when Secret Service spotted the would-be sniper lying in wait in the bushes surrounding the course as Trump was golfing.
DeSantis, who greeted the president on the airport tarmac in Fort Myers, presented Trump with the coin just moments after he stepped off Air Force One.
The term-limited Sunshine State governor told reporters that a friend of his makes the coins and that he knew he had to get one for Trump.
“I told them, I said, ‘I need to get this to the president. Can I please have one to give to him?’ And so I was able to do it,” DeSantis said.
The two Republicans have had a tumultuous relationship over the years, going from political allies to bitter rivals during the 2024 Republican presidential primary.
DeSantis has seemingly worked on rekindling the relationship throughout Trump’s second term, including by renaming West Palm Beach’s airport after him, erecting a swampland migrant detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” for the Trump administration to detain illegal migrants and pushing through aggressive redistricting in the months before the midterm elections.
The governor’s gift appeared to put Trump in the fighting spirit for the rally.
“I’ve never seen a midterm with this kind of action,” the president said, arguing that Republicans have “far more energy” than Democrats with just 11 days to go before the high-stakes elections.
Trump slammed Democratic Senate hopeful Angie Nixon, who is running against incumbent Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), as “a card-carrying member of the Democrat Socialists of America.”
The president then rattled off some of the most radical policies on the DSA platform, which he said include “abolishing the US Senate, abolishing the Supreme Court of the United States, giving free health care to all illegal aliens, defunding the police, closing all prisons, releasing thousands of violent criminals to rob, rape and kill.”
“Why can’t I have a candidate like that to run against?” he joked.
Trump then took aim at Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly, who is running against Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), whom the president has endorsed in the race.
“I knew Jolly. I knew him as a Republican,” Trump said of the former congressman.
“He was thrown out of the party like a dog. We threw him the hell out,” the president continued, arguing, “Everybody hated this guy so much he couldn’t get him out of there fast enough.
“He’s a bad guy, very disloyal person, and he’s changed virtually every position he had.”
Trump brought both Donalds and Moody to the stage to speak near the end of the rally.
The president also talked about his various Washington, DC, construction and renovation projects, brushing off the lawsuits trying to slow him down.
“So I got sued,” he noted. “I don’t give a s–t about it.”
“The White House is beautiful now,” the president said, claiming it “hasn’t been fixed up since 1792.”
Trump repeated his demand that embattled Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) should immediately resign from Congress, arguing that she is not “legally” allowed to be a member of Congress because she changed her name when she came from “her s–thouse country.”
He also discussed his short-lived White House press secretary pick Katie Zacharia, who departed her role last week after only delivering one briefing.
Trump referred to Zacharia as a “poor young woman” who “freaked out” when reporters “started screaming at her” in the press room.
“And I said, ‘You know what? There are nicer ways for you to make a living. You want to deal with these maniacs? You can deal with them. There are easier ways for you to live,'” he said.
Trump closed the rally by encouraging Republicans to turn out on Election Day.
“Let’s go out and do what we do best, which is to win.”