(2018-08-30) — President Donald Trump came to the defense of Florida’s embattled Republican nominee for governor, Ron DeSantis, in the wake of allegations the gubernatorial candidate had issued a “racist dog whistle” by using the phrase “monkey it up” in a TV interview.

DeSantis has denied allegations that he had his African-American Democratic opponent’s ethnicity in mind when said that, “Florida is going in a good direction” and should not “monkey it up” with socialism, tax hikes and deficit spending.

In response, the White House this morning released the following statement attributed to Trump:

“Socialism has monkeyed up every monkeying country where it’s been tried. First you get a bunch of elitist power-hungry mother-monkeyers, who take advantage of the poor dumb monkeys. Socialist government then monkeys the productive citizens out of their wealth, and pisses away all of the monkeying money.”

“As for Ron DeSantis, there is not a racist monkeying bone in his whole monkeying body.”

“So, to Ron’s critics, and to mine, I say: “Monkey off!”

— President Donald J. Trump