Top DeSantis Ally Bill Mitchell Elevates Leftist to Attack Trump

Bill Mitchell, a prominent pro-Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) online influencer, hosted a far-left influencer on his podcast Monday to attack former President Donald Trump.

Mitchell hosted the notorious anti-Trump online influencer Brian Krassenstein on his Your Voice America podcast. Krassenstein and his twin brother Ed gained a combined following of more than one million followers on Twitter during the Trump administration by flooding the former president’s replies with attacks and criticism.

Both Mitchell and the Krassenstein brothers were previously banned from the social media platform but reinstated when Elon Musk took control of the company. During the podcast episode, the pair discussed Trump’s “troubled” campaign, cast doubt on Trump’s lead in the polls, and bolstered the various criminal indictments against the former president.

“Let’s switch to Trump. Trump is a very troubled candidate,” Mitchell told Krassenstein, adding that of Trump’s supporters, “about half of those have got one foot out the door.”

“Right now, you said, he’s like at 54 percent, but that means that 46 percent are people that are likely against Trump. So if you whittle down the rest of the field, to like one or two different candidates, I think that that candidate, or those two candidates would have a decent shot at defeating Trump in the primary,” Krassenstein responded.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN KRASSENSTEIN!

Brian @krassenstein is one of the most popular commentators on Twitter. He describes himself as center left politically. We discuss the Biden candidacy, Trump's legal troubles, polling, the debates and the future of social media! pic.twitter.com/OIhZeALaQ3

— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) August 14, 2023

The anti-Trump leftist claimed, “things might get a little bit tighter,” if the field is narrowed down to Trump, DeSantis, and anti-woke businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

The pair then cast doubt on the “deceptive” polls that consistently show Trump atop the Republican primary field with a commanding lead over DeSantis and the rest of his opponents.

“We get all these polls that come out. And it’s very deceptive because so many of these polls right now are either adults or registered voters,” Mitchell claimed. “And that means that about half of those people aren’t even going to vote at all, which means they’re low information voters.”

Krassenstein claimed Trump’s leading in the polls because “he’s like an incumbent,” adding, “every single person in America knows who he is so when you have these polls, they’re going to default to Trump, whereas they might not have heard of Vivek or even Ron DeSantis.”

In reality, Trump is ahead of DeSantis by as much as 45 points, according to recent polls. A Kaplan Strategies poll published Monday also found that Trump’s lead over DeSantis is 38 points.

Mitchell also floated the idea that Ramaswamy, who overtook DeSantis for second place in the Kaplan Poll, is secretly being used to pull “votes away from DeSantis and hoping for some sort of role in Trump’s administration.”

“I don’t want to be too conspiratorial, but a lot of people think that a lot of people feel that way because Trump is never attacking him,” Mitchell claimed.

Mitchell grew his online platform in 2016 by being one of the most vocal Trump supporters. However, Mitchell made headlines when he flipped on Trump in January to support DeSantis.

When Mitchell flipped on Trump, he declared he could not “in good conscience support a man who would tell lies about a great American to defend his own enormous ego.”

“I will work with every ounce of my being to help Gov. DeSantis win the nomination and the presidency,” Mitchell claimed.

Former Trump campaign official Kaelan Dorr told Breitbart News that Mitchell’s change of heart shows he “can be bought or sold to the highest bidder.”

Dorr said:

Bill’s tongue can be bought or sold to the highest bidder. He’s the political version of the Boxcar children. He has no home, has been caught grifting off of his followers to pay his rent, has been run off of every social network, and has seen his Twitter follower count drop precipitously since jumping to team Ron. It’s shameful to see this man, who could be the spokesperson for quaaludes, utilize the platform afforded to him by the MAGA movement to simp for DeSantis.

Mitchell’s elevation of the far-left Krassenstein brother is the latest sign of trouble for DeSantis’s online influencer brigade. For example, Breitbart News revealed that Pedro Gonzalez, a well-known pro-DeSantis online influencer, regularly sent racist and antisemitic messages in 2019 and 2020.

DeSantis recently lost support from top America First movement figures such as Mike Cernovich after DeSantis’s press secretary Jeremy Redfern accused detractors of being “dishonest” when questions arose about DeSantis’s past comments about then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into “Russian collusion” between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian agents.

Mitchell and Krassenstein also bolstered the credibility of the various indictments Trump faces, pushing back on the idea that they are political witch-hunts.

“How do you think all that’s going to turn out, as his base thinks it’s a witch hunt. But you know what? Sometimes, it’s like the old saying, ‘just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean nobody’s talking about you, and just because there’s a witch hunt doesn’t mean you’re not a witch.’ So what do you think?” Mitchell asked Krassenstein.

Krassenstein, who was one of the leftists gloating over Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment against Trump, said the “U.S. justice system is pretty fair” and dismissed any accusations that these cases have been politicized.

Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.