FLORIDA GOVERNOR DIVES INTO CAMPAIGNING
DeSantis holds series of interviews, outlines first tour
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida plunged into his first full day of presidential campaigning Thursday after his sputtering Twitter rollout the night before, holding a series of interviews with friendly conservative commentators and announcing in-person events in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina next week.
For DeSantis, the immediate challenge appeared to be moving past the rough kickoff and appealing to a mainstream Republican audience, after a Twitter discussion with billionaire Elon Musk that often strayed into online right-wing grievances and away from the issues voters say they care about most, like the economy.
Acknowledging that a “very small percentage” of Republican primary voters were on Twitter, DeSantis defended his decision to announce his campaign on the social media platform.
“We felt that there would be a lot of buzz about it,” he told conservative radio host Erick Erickson on Thursday afternoon. “And I think that was probably the biggest story in the world yesterday. And so hopefully we’ll get some people interested in our campaign who may not have been otherwise.”
DeSantis also sought to
turn attention back to his brewing clash with former President Donald Trump, whose devoted supporters are one of the biggest hurdles to the governor’s candidacy.
As he began his media blitz, DeSantis took a series of jabs at Trump, noting how frequently the former president attacked him.
“I think a lot of what he’s doing is showing everybody that he understands that I’ve got a good chance to beat him, because he doesn’t criticize anybody else now,” DeSantis told a New Hampshire radio station. “It’s only me.”
Trump’s team “wouldn’t do that if they didn’t think that I had a chance,” added DeSantis, who argued that he had a better chance of winning independent voters. Later in the day, he kept the pressure up, saying that Trump was “running to the
left” and that the former president “was a different guy today than when he was running in 2015 and 2016.”
At the same time, DeSantis suggested on “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show” that, if elected, he might consider pardoning Trump if he faced federal charges — along with many other people, including defendants charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol.
“On Day 1, I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases, who people are victims of weaponization or political targeting, and we will be aggressive in issuing pardons,” he said, responding to a question about Jan. 6 pardons but also citing other cases that he claimed represented “weaponization” of federal law enforcement.
“Some of these cases, some people may have a technical violation of the law, but if there are three other people who did the same thing but just in a context like BLM and they don’t get prosecuted at all, that is uneven application of justice,” he added, referring to the Black Lives Matter movement. “And so we’re going to find ways where that did not happen and then we will use the pardon power.”
Asked directly whether his review might include Trump himself, DeSantis said, “I would say any example of disfavored treatment based on politics or weaponization would be included in that review, no matter how small or how big.”
The governor had avoided mentioning Trump during his rollout Wednesday, a delayed livestream Twitter Spaces event with Musk, the platform’s owner, that was plagued by technical glitches, causing dead air and an intermittently hot mic.
Next up for DeSantis is a return to more traditional campaigning, with planned stops in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the first three nominating states, from May 30 to June 2.
The campaign bills this four-day swing through 12 cities and towns as the first leg of his “Great American Comeback Tour.”
“Our campaign is committed to putting in the time to win these early nominating states,” Generra Peck, DeSantis’ campaign manager, said in a statement.