According to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Florida is considering removing President Joe Biden off its primary ballot over his reaction to the migrant issue, after Maine’s secretary of state took action against former President Donald Trump for the Jan. 6 incident at the United States Capitol.
“To have one election official decide that somebody is guilty of, quote, ‘insurrection,’ when there has not been a criminal conviction of anybody, much less the candidate himself, that opens up Pandora’s box,” DeSantis told reporters in Iowa. “I’m actually looking at this in Florida now. Could we make a credible case that Biden [should be removed] because of the invasion of 8 million [migrants]?”
DeSantis emphasized that he was opposed to “tit-for-tat” political reprisals, but he was also opposed to “fighting with one hand tied behind your back” after the Colorado Supreme Court withdrew Trump from the state’s primary ballot.
“Whatever the rules are applied to us, we’re going to fight back and apply the rules the other way,” he said. “I do think the U.S. Supreme Court is going to have to take the case. I do think they’re going to have to rein this in because I just think, if you look at it, it just becomes too different.”
When asked what he would do differently on Jan. 6, 2021, DeSantis remarked that he would “have won the election, and it would never have been an issue.”
He claimed Trump aggravated the situation by supporting the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, which justified allowing individuals to vote by mail.
“Republican voters should think about this,” DeSantis said. “I know it’s a big issue that the media likes to talk about; the Left likes to talk about it: [If] Trump’s the candidate, 2024 is going to focus on his legal issues, criminal trials, Jan. 6, and really all these things from the past, and that’s going to subsume everything.”
“That is not the way Republicans drive a good message to be able to get a majority of the Electoral College, win the Congress, and then win the Senate,” he added. “Trump would be spiking the football if someone else got taken off the ballot; Trump would be willing to use this lawfare against other people. That’s just a fact.”
Voters also questioned DeSantis about Jan. 6, which the governor described as a Trump-encouraged protest that “devolved into a riot.”
He informed the audience that the former president’s supporters attempted to use the government against him by filing “a bogus ethics complaint with the Florida Election Commission.”
“They actually asked to have me removed from office as governor,” he said. “So, if any of his competitors had been taken off the ballot, Trump would be spiking the football; let’s just be clear about this.”
