Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis railed against the Colorado Supreme Court’s disqualification of former President Trump from the state’s ballot, calling it a “stunt” by Democrats and the media to “solidify support” for Trump in the GOP primary.
“What the left and the media and the Democrats are doing — they’re doing all this stuff, to basically solidify support in the primary for him, get him into the general, and the whole general election is going to be all this legal stuff,” DeSantis said Wednesday, speaking at the Westside Conservative Club Breakfast in Iowa.
Calling the move “unfair,” DeSantis, the governor of Florida, alleged the Democrats and the media are “abusing power.”
“The question is — is that going to work? And I think they have a playbook that unfortunately will work,” DeSantis said. “And it’ll give Biden or the Democrat or whoever the ability to skate through this thing. That’s their plan; that’s what they want.”
“What they don’t want is to have somebody like me, who will make the election not about all those other issues, but it’ll make the election about the failures of Biden, the failures of the left and how we’re going to be able to turn the country around,” he continued.
Several GOP members in Congress and some of DeSantis’s rivals in the presidential primary have claimed the Colorado ruling is an attempt by Democrats to prevent Trump from winning the 2024 election.
The Colorado Supreme Court’s seven-member bench was entirely appointed by Democratic governors, six of whom won retention elections, and a seventh who will run to do so next year.
In a bombshell 4-3 ruling Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court kicked Trump off the the state’s ballot under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause. The four justices argued Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack — including his false claims of election fraud and push for supporters to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6 — meets the requirements of the insurrection clause.
The clause states those who previously took oaths to support the Constitution as a “member of Congress,” “officer of the United States,” “member of any State legislature” or an “executive or judicial officer of any State” cannot engage in a rebellion against it. The ruling overturns a district court’s earlier decision that the office of the presidency does not fall under the clause.
Colorado’s Supreme Court gave Trump’s legal team until Jan. 4 to allow Trump to first seek review from the U.S. Supreme Court, which Trump’s campaign has already vowed to do.
DeSantis, like several other GOP lawmakers, said he believes the Supreme Court will reverse the decision. The nation’s highest court has a 6-3 conservative majority; three right-leaning justices were appointed by Trump.
Arguing the timing of Colorado’s ruling, along with Trump’s ongoing legal battles, are “for a reason,” DeSantis said “they” — likely a reference to the media and Democrats — “have a plan of what they’re trying to accomplish.”
“And do we want to have 2024 to be about this trial? That case, this case, having to put hundreds of millions of dollars into legal stuff, or do we want 2024 to be about your issues about the country’s future?” DeSantis said.
Other Republican presidential candidates, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, also criticized the decision.
Ramaswamy on Tuesday pledged to “withdraw” from the Colorado ballot unless Trump is included, and pushed his GOP rivals to do the same. Christie, a steadfast critic of Trump, argued voters, not the courts, should decide whether Trump should be “prevented” from being reelected to the White House.