DeSantis’s Trump strategy tested by pressure to take sides on rumored indictment
Haisten Willis
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Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is facing the strongest pressure yet to take a definitive stance on former President Donald Trump but continues to follow his own playbook.
Trump rocketed back into the headlines by declaring on Saturday morning that he expects to be arrested this week in the Stormy Daniels investigation, saying the “highly political” Manhattan District Attorney’s Office planned to take him into custody.
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Within hours, Trump associates were calling for DeSantis to speak out.
“Thank you, Vice President [Mike Pence] and [Vivek Ramaswamy] for pointing out how Radical Left Democrats are trying to divide our Country in the name of Partisan Politics,” tweeted former Trump senior adviser Jason Miller. “Radio silence from [DeSantis] and [Nikki Haley].”
Scores of other Trump-aligned personalities have echoed the call for DeSantis to get behind his former ally, including the Trump “War Room” account, political activist Jack Posobiec, Donald Trump Jr., and Ramaswamy.
DeSantis, who is expected to announce a White House run this summer, has mostly ignored Trump to date and has refused to give him clear points of attack.
Continuing both of those trends, DeSantis stayed silent over the weekend before responding Monday morning by attacking Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and swiping, subtly, at Trump.
“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. I can’t speak to that,” DeSantis said when asked about the matter at an unrelated press conference. “But what I can speak to is that if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every day in this jurisdiction, and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush money payments, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office.”
While Trump is on his third marriage and has had multiple confirmed and rumored affairs, DeSantis has been married for 14 years to his wife, Casey, with whom he has three young children.
Tagging Bragg a “Soros-funded” DA, DeSantis also took the chance to brag on himself.
“These Soros district attorneys are a menace to society, and I’m just glad that I’m the only governor in the country that’s actually removed one from office during my tenure,” he said.
Though DeSantis mentioned Democratic megadonor George Soros six times and President Joe Biden once, he did not name Trump. He also made clear that he is not and will not be involved in the New York case.
The statement was nominally a defense of Trump, but the lack of involvement and the subtle dig at Trump’s sordid personal life didn’t go unnoticed by the former president or his allies.
“Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser, and better known, when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!)” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I’m sure he will want to fight these misfits just like I do!”
Trump Jr. slammed the Florida governor as well.
“So DeSantis thinks that Dems weaponizing the law to indict President Trump is a ‘manufactured circus’ & isn’t a ‘real issue,'” he tweeted. “Pure weakness. Now we know why he was silent all weekend. He’s totally owned by Karl Rove, Paul Ryan & his billionaire donors. 100% Controlled Opposition.”
DeSantis, like all GOP candidates this cycle, faces the challenge of trying to appeal to Trump’s voters while convincing them to choose a different candidate, argues Florida Atlantic University politics professor Kevin Wagner.
“It’s a challenge for all of the candidates to figure out how to walk that path of making themselves appealing on their own and also figuring out how to appeal to Trump’s supporters,” Wagner said.
The pressure campaign from Team Trump may be an attempt to drive a wedge into DeSantis’s plans by having him either fully support Trump, which would imply he’s the strongest candidate in the field, or make a clean break, which risks alienating Trump’s massive Republican base.
But as Monday’s statement shows, DeSantis is not likely to be moved by such tactics, Wagner says.
“The governor of Florida has shown over the last couple of years that he’s going to speak to the issues he wants to speak to, and he won’t be pushed into anything he doesn’t want to do,” Wagner said. “That’s been his clear approach to governance.”
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Not everyone in Trumpworld joined the anti-DeSantis chorus. Onetime Trump legal adviser Jenna Ellis suggested it spoke well of him.
“People seem focused on DeSantis saying he won’t get involved, but he said that after saying he ISN’T involved,” she wrote. “There is nothing here that concerns a state governor. He’s not going to push himself into this political circus. RESTRAINT instead of bowing to the demands for political optics is called PRINCIPLED LEADERSHIP.”