Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) warned former President Trump is likely to use the power of government against his political opponents if elected again in an interview published Wednesday.
In a RealClearPolitics interview, the GOP presidential candidate painted a picture of a second Trump term centered on revenge and accused the former president of targeting political rivals, including DeSantis.
“Trump is fine with weaponization if it’s against people he doesn’t like,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis described a “bogus” ethics complaint a Trump PAC filed against him, alleging he violated state law by launching a presidential campaign early. A Florida ethics board later dismissed the complaint.
Trump has leaned into revenge as a focal point in his third presidential campaign. He’s repeatedly vowed to prosecute political opponents and has recently likened himself to a dictator.
DeSantis also described Trump’s myriad legal troubles as a distraction to the GOP race and called for an opportunity to hold the former president to account.
“This whole legal stuff has had a big impact on the overall dynamics,” DeSantis said of Trump’s multiple felony cases, which have dominated news cycles for a year.
The Florida governor entered the 2024 race with high expectations, and early polling results put him neck and neck with the former president. DeSantis has sold himself as a younger, more effective version of what a Trump second term could look like.
But he’s gotten few opportunities to stick it to Trump because he has kept away from the primary race. Trump has refused to attend any primary debate, citing his large polling lead, much to the chagrin of his rivals.
“Are we going to have some type of accountability?” DeSantis said of the results of Trump’s first term. “Are we going to have a reckoning for this, or are we just going to act like everyone did such a great job?”
DeSantis instead postulated that Trump’s revenge-focused, legal case-obsessed campaign is all part of a plan put on by Trump and Democrats.
“This is all very strategic,” he told RCP.
Democrats want to run against Trump, and they see the indictments hurting him in a general election even if they make a primary win easy, DeSantis continued. The problem for Democrats, he said, is the ongoing trials create “a massive legal wringer” for the 2024 general election.
The governor admitted the strategy could be working in favor of Trump.
The legal situation “makes it harder for a guy like me to get oxygen,” he said. “That’s just the landscape, and so a lot of that is beyond your control. … You’ve just got to do the best you can here on the ground to win the vote.”
DeSantis’s campaign has focused its resources on Iowa as the state to make a mark, with hopes that an early caucus victory could catapult his candidacy to defeat Trump.
He’s the only GOP candidate to complete a “full Grassley” — visiting every Iowa county, named after the Hawkeye State senior Senator — and has gained the endorsements of influential Iowans Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) and evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats.
“We are clicking,” he said. “We are doing good.”
Despite that, DeSantis trails Trump by a wide margin in national primary polls, and the former president’s lead has only expanded in Iowa in recent months.
In the Hawkeye State, Trump has about 52 percent support to DeSantis’s 18 percent, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ average of polls. The governor has lost ground in recent months to the rising campaign of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has about 17 percent support.
He urged Iowans to put those numbers to the side.
“Don’t listen to the media, don’t listen to them cite polls,” he said. “Put it aside and do what you think is right.”