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- Billionaire George Soros slammed Donald Trump during a speech on Thursday.
- He called Trump a "pitiful figure" who is driven by narcissism and is losing GOP support.
- Soros expects Ron DeSantis to beat him in 2024, but said Trump could run as a third-party candidate.
Billionaire investor George Soros, a frequent subject of right-wing conspiracy theories, slammed former President Donald Trump as a has-been who could ruin the GOP's chances in 2024 with his narcissistic tendencies.
Soros described the former president as a "pitiful figure" who spends his time moaning about his election loss in 2020.
Soros, who pumped millions into progressive groups in the 2022 midterms, becoming the biggest donor of the election cycle, said his hope is that Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis "slug it out" for the Republican nomination ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
He described DeSantis in more favorable terms, calling him "shrewd, ruthless, and ambitious."
The billionaire was speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Thursday.
Soros said that Trump is a "deeply flawed character," adding that Republican donors are deserting him in droves.
Earlier this month the network of donors created by the conservative billionaire Charles Koch revealed in a memo that it wanted to "turn the page on the past" for 2024 — a veiled swipe at Trump.
Soros added that DeSantis is likely to pip Trump to the nomination, but that the former president's "narcissism has turned into a disease" that could lead him to run as a third-party candidate in 2024.
"That would lead to a Democratic landslide, and force the Republican party to reform itself," Soros said.
Soros has made comments opposing Trump as far back as 2017, predicting that he would fail and calling him "an imposter and con man and a would-be dictator."
In turn, Trump has proliferated conspiracy theories about him. Trump's campaign distributed an email last month which called on his supporters to help him "FIGHT BACK" against Soros' "money machine."
The Forward, a Jewish-interest publication, said the email invoked an antisemitic trope.
The billionaire has become a bogeyman for the right, with bizarre conspiracy theories accusing him of secretly controlling the global economy.