Ron DeSantis to visit Staten Island Monday

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will visit New York City Monday for a pro-law enforcement rally at a catering hall in Staten Island – a holiday incursion into one of former President Trump’s most loyal strongholds.

The 7:30 a.m. President’s Day speech at Privé will be the governor’s first stop on a multi-city tour to showcase his pro-cop bona fides as he gears up for an expected 2024 White House campaign, insiders said.

 “On Staten Island, we are proud to support our law enforcement,” said Assemblyman Mike Tannousis, the Staten Island GOP chairman. “I’m happy that our law enforcement community will get some recognition and support.”

The city’s reddest borough is packed with Trump backers, who gave him 57% of the island’s vote in 2020 – making Monday’s foray a crucial test of DeSantis’s chances among the former president’s remaining devotees.

Meanwhile, Trump ripped into the Florida governor early Saturday, blasting his response to the coronavirus pandemic while denying that he ever called him by the derisive nickname “Meatball Ron.”

“I will never call Ron DeSanctimonious ‘Meatball’ Ron, as the Fake News is insisting I will,” Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social.

It was the second time this week Trump knocked back a report that he had used the moniker, which some said was an anti-Italian slur.