Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis avoided attacking former President Donald Trump over blockbuster claims that he ordered Mar-a-Lago’s server wiped, telling DailyMail.com Friday that he was “not a legal commentator.” is.
DeSantis headlined a two-day bus tour of Iowa as a way to revive his struggling presidential campaign, with Trump still averaging 34 points ahead of Florida’s governor.
Asked to respond to special counsel Jack Smith who filed a replacement charge against Trump and an additional Trump aide alleging that the ex-president asked an aide to remove surveillance footage to erase evidence that could be used in the investigation to classified documents, DeSantis said it was “in the past.”
“Well, we’ve — we got engaged when, when we needed to,” DeSantis told DailyMail.com, when pressed for why he wouldn’t touch Trump, who he’ll have to beat in the GOP primaries if he’s president. want to be.
“I litigate — I’m not a legal commentator — I litigate on that,” he said of the indictment news.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is taking a bus tour of Iowa this week as he “reboots” his campaign. He lashes out at President Joe Biden and his family, but won’t touch former President Donald Trump’s mounting legal turmoil
DeSantis then pointed to several instances where he went on the offensive against Trump.
“There have been issues where, you know, he attacked me for voting against an amnesty he proposed when he was president. I’m against the amnesty, he tried to amnesty two million people,” DeSantis said.
The governor of Florida referred to a compromise reached by the Trump administration in 2018.
The Trump White House would open a path to citizenship for 1.8 million would-be Dreamers in exchange for Democrats signing up for more restrictions on legal immigration and $25 million in funding to strengthen border security—aka the wall.
The policy never came to fruition.
“He promised to eliminate the national debt when he ran for president,” DeSantis also said. “He added nearly $8 trillion to the national debt.”
DeSantis also pointed to Trump’s COVID policies.
“We’ve been very clear about the disagreements we’ve had about bureaucrats like Dr. Fauci,” he said. “He elevated Fauci, he left him there, he didn’t fire him. I would have done the exact opposite.’
“So those are things that I think are important for our voters to look at,” the 2024 hopeful insisted.
At his Iowa events, DeSantis took on President Joe Biden and his family, rather than the Republican competition.
“If I’m president, we won’t allow cocaine in the White House,” he proclaimed as he took the stage Thursday night at the Revelton Distilling Co. in Oscelola.
He made the same proclamation Friday at Smokey Row Coffee in Oskaloosa.
While there was no evidence that the cocaine found near the Situation Room belonged to Biden’s troubled son Hunter, a recovering crack addict, DeSantis linked it to the first son by immediately referring to his own children.
“I have to say, I have a 6-, a 5-, and a 3-year-old chasing my wife and I around the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee and so I can’t necessarily promise there won’t be any problems in the White House with them,’ he said. “But that’s like marking on the wall. I have the magic eraser. We can take care of that.’
The Florida governor took another swipe at Biden’s messy family as he spoke about how parents should be the ones making major decisions about their children’s curriculum.
“Wait a minute, who are you to decide that they are your children?” he said of Biden. “And first of all, this is a man who hasn’t even visited his granddaughter in Arkansas.”
DeSantis referenced the White House cocaine — despite no evidence it belonged to Hunter Biden (left) — and mocked President Joe Biden (right) for never visiting his seventh grandchild in Arkansas
The president did not acknowledge his seventh grandchild, the product of a relationship with Lunden Roberts and Hunter of Arkansas, when the first son was at the height of his addiction.
DeSantis again mentioned Hunter Biden when he refuted the idea that he was banning books in Florida.
“In Florida you can get any book you want… if you want to look at adult material, don’t put it in someone’s fifth grade classroom, but look at Hunter’s laptop for all I care,” DeSantis said with a laugh.
As part of his effort to make a name for himself as an anti-woke crusader, DeSantis has spoken out against “Critical Race Theory” and what he calls “gender ideology,” the latter of which liberals say teaches kids it’s okay to be gay to be. or transgender.
He also spoke out against transgender men at his Oskaloosa campaign event.
“Don’t tell me a man can get pregnant and don’t expect me to believe that, because I don’t, because it’s not true,” he said.
On Thursday night, DeSantis spoke again about the importance of a “single standard of justice in this country.”
“You know, if Hunter Biden was a Republican, he probably would have been in jail three years ago and now he’s trying to get a lover’s plea. But this judge actually opposed that, which I was amazed at,” he said, referring to Wednesday’s Delaware federal court hearing that suspended the first son’s plea deal.
Lunden Roberts (pictured, right) has a daughter with Hunter Biden, who was conceived during the first son’s addiction period
Lunden Roberts is pictured with her daughter she had with first son Hunter Biden
DeSantis’ comments on Thursday night came after a major turn in Trump’s legal woes.
As the country awaited an expected third indictment against the former president — this time on charges related to election interference and Jan. 6 — Special Counsel Jack Smith added additional charges to the 32-count charge of mishandling classified documents by Trump.
The new, superseding indictment indicates federal prosecutors have found evidence that Trump, “the boss,” ordered aides to “wipe” security footage from Mar-a-Lago’s servers.
It was a surprising claim after Trump went after former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton over her own wiping — or “acid-washing” — of her private email server before handing over emails to the FBI.
In Osceola, DeSantis answered questions from potential Iowa voters but did not speak to the press.
Earlier, when speaking to reporters, he dismissed a question about the possible impending third indictment against Trump.
In conversation with The Messenger in Lamoni, Iowa, DeSantis said he didn’t want to discuss Trump’s business, saying it was better to focus on “what’s going to happen in the future.”
“That’s not at the forefront of voters,” Florida’s governor said. “So I don’t really talk about it because I try to focus on things that they really care about.”
At Thursday night’s town hall, DeSantis answered questions from attendees about artificial intelligence, said he would roll back electric cars — to appease Iowa’s ethanol-friendly mob — and how, as president, he would work down the aisle.
For the latter, he pointed to raising teacher salaries in Florida and working on environmental restoration projects like he had as governor in the Everglades.
He also indicated that he would be open to one suggestion from the crowd — to make Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds a running mate.
“Make her number 2!” shouted a male audience member when Reynolds’ name was mentioned.
“Do you think she’d make a good No. 2?” DeSantis said with a smile.
DeSantis Iowa bus tour — sponsored by its affiliate PAC, “Never Back Down” — comes after slimming down his campaign, suspending 38 campaign workers as the $20 million raised in just six weeks was quickly spent.
Depicted as clumsy on the stump, DeSantis is trying to get involved in more traditional politics in Iowa, to see if he can finally make some headway in removing Trump’s dominating lead in a state the 44-year-old is likely to make or break. President’s campaign.
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