Trumpworld is attacking DeSantis over his inconsistent name pronunciation: 'If you can't get your name right, how can you lead a country?'

• Trump's campaign jabbed at Ron DeSantis over his changing pronunciation of his last name.
• Going back to 2018, DeSantis has flipped on whether he says Deh-Santis or Dee-Santis.

Former President Donald Trump's campaign is taking name calling quite literally.

On Thursday, a Trump campaign spokesman escalated the former president's taunting of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' inconsistent pronunciation of his own last name. DeSantis has vacillated between using Deh-Santis and Dee-Santis throughout his political career, an approach that has not gone unnoticed.

"Ron DeSantis is a phony who can't decide how to pronounce his name," Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement first obtained by Axios. "If you can't get your name right, how can you lead a country?"

DeSantis, who was asked about Trump's taunts, called his once-ally's jabs "petty" and "juvenile" during an interview with a New Hampshire reporter Thursday morning.

"I think it's so petty. I think it's so juvenile. I don't think that's what voters want," DeSantis told Jack Heath on Good Morning NH. "And honestly, I think that his conduct, which he's been doing for years now, I think that's one of the reasons he's not in the White House now, because I think he alienated too many voters, for things that really don't matter."

Trump himself previously shared a video of DeSantis using different pronunciations of his last name.

"Who changes the pronunciation of their own last name in their 40s? Is there anything genuine about this guy?" asked a Twitter and Truth Social user who goes by the handle @_johnnymaga who assembled the video Trump shared in March.

DeSantis' changing pronunciations were the subject of a 2018 Tampa Bay Times story that suggested that Casey DeSantis, the governor's wife, pushed her husband to say Deh-Santis instead of Dee-Santis. Casey DeSantis has played a major role in shaping DeSantis' image and preparing him for his biggest moment on the national stage.

As for what he does now, DeSantis said Dee-Santis in his official campaign announcement video. But as Axios pointed out, in later interviews on Fox News and elsewhere DeSantis flipped back to using Deh-Santis.

Correction: June 1, 2023 — An earlier version of this story misspelled the last name of a Trump spokesperson. His name is Steven Cheung.