Former President Donald Trump. (Getty Images)

Former US President Donald Trump has launched a new attack on Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis via his Truth Social platform.

In a February 18 tweet, Trump called DeSantis a "RINO in disguise" (RINO stands for Republican In Name Only) and claimed that the governor's "poll numbers are dropping like a rock."

"Ron DeSanctimonious wants to cut your Social Security and Medicare, close down Florida and its beaches, loves RINOS Paul Ryan, Jeb Bush, and Karl Rove (disasters ALL! ), is backed by the Globalist's Club for NO Growth, Lincoln Pervert Project, and 'Uninspired' Koch — And it only gets worse from there," the former president declared.

At least one media outlet was quick to note that, despite doing so in his signature manner, Trump had just made a commitment not to refer to DeSantis as a "meatball" when he spoke this expletive.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that even though "FoxNews killing lightweight Paul Ryan is revered by him, Low Energy Jeb Bush is his hero and always at his side, his beaches and State were closed for long periods of time, his testing, testing, testing for the China Virus didn’t work out too well, and his loyalty skills are really weak, it would be totally inappropriate to use the world ‘meatball’ as a moniker for Ron!”

Although DeSantis has not officially declared his intention to run for president, there are rumors that he may challenge the 45th in the primary elections for the 2019 US presidential election, which is why Trump has repeatedly verbally attacked DeSantis.

In a poll last month, Republicans favored DeSantis over Trump as their 2024 presidential candidate to run against President Joe Biden by a 28% margin, a recent national survey by Marquette University Law School revealed on Thursday.

Some 64 percent of Republicans prefer DeSantis, who won a reelection victory by beating his predecessor Charlie Crist last November, over former President Trump, who lost his bid for reelection by Biden in 2020, a press release on the poll said.

This comes after The Hill published on December 22, 2022 a report that outlined the "differences" between Trump and DeSantis, arguing that these "differences" were coming to the surface as both emerged as potential opponents in the upcoming presidential race.

The report argues that if Ron runs for president in 2024, despite there being no guarantee that he will, it is likely that the race will be a heated one, mainly due to sharp "differences" in their policy positions.