DeSantis’ self-serving comment shows, with or without indictment, Trump is GOP king | Opinion

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis must be awfully tired from all that tap-dancing. We’re talking, of course, about his reaction Thursday to Donald Trump’s indictment in Miami.

DeSantis talked on Twitter about a lot of things. He talked about “the weaponization of federal law enforcement.” He talked about “an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation.” He threw in Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden.

And then he twisted himself into even more of a pretzel by trying to turn it all into a campaign ad to benefit — surprise! — him: “The DeSantis administration will bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all.”

Uh-huh. Missing from the rhetoric was any real semblance of a defense of Trump. But also missing? Any real shot at Trump. DeSantis, it seems, is conflicted.

You didn’t hear DeSantis call Trump an innocent man. And that was before the indictment was unsealed on Friday, with 38 charges against Trump and a key aide related to their handling of classified documents after he left office. Federal prosecutors accused him of violating the Espionage Act and conspiring to obstruct justice. They allege Trump showed classified information to other people on two occasions in 2021: a “plan of attack” prepared by the Defense Department and a classified map related to a military operation. He told a representative of his political action committee “that he should not be showing it to the representative and that the representative should not get too close,’” the indictment says, as reported by CNN.

These are allegations that, if proven in court, would show that Trump put national security at risk.

Deep down, DeSantis must be gloating and hoping that Trump’s legal and moral problems finally catch up with him, and that DeSantis will benefit. So far, that hasn’t happened. So DeSantis has continued to tap-dance.

No doubt he wants to keep attacking Trump. How else to get out from under the shadow of his old mentor, who continues to dominate in the polls? But he clearly also wants to court Trump’s MAGA base. The result is a mish-mash of fiery-sounding words that don’t mean a lot but, he likely hopes, won’t offend a lot people, either.

DeSantis’ comments are markedly different from the last time Trump was indicted (at this rate, we may have to start numbering the cases.) Back then, in March, Trump was about to be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on business fraud charges related to his alleged payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to cover up an affair.

DeSantis, who had not yet declared he was running for the Republican nomination for the presidency, didn’t even try to resist the urge to needle Trump.

“Look, I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Panama City, as some in the audience laughed. “I can’t speak to that.”

DeSantis’ most recent remarks speak to the gravitational pull a man twice impeached and twice indicted continues to exert on the Republican Party. The assumption that voters would grow tired of the former president after the GOP’s lackluster results in last year’s midterms, or that Never Trumpers exist in big enough numbers to sway the 2024 primaries, turned out to be an illusion. Not only has Trump’s support among GOP voters grown, the only way DeSantis has found to attack him is by painting the former president as not being far enough right. In other words, not being Trumpy enough. DeSantis even said in a recent interview that Trump “is a different guy than 2015, 2016.”

Contrast DeSantis’ words with how former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie described Trump this week, as “a lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog.” Christie also is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, but he is running in a Republican Party that no longer exists.

Republicans who want to remain relevant in Trumpland know better. It’s a lot easier to echo Trump’s accusations of a witch-hunt or of a corrupt deep state than it is to allow the facts about this case to emerge.

“There is no limit to what these people will do to protect their power & destroy those who threaten it, even if it means ripping our country apart & shredding public faith in the institutions that hold our republic together,” Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio wrote on Twitter Thursday.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, a longtime Trump ally, tweeted: “Biden is single-handedly destroying the justice system in America. After tonight, Biden will go down as the most corrupt and despotic president in our nation’s history.”

Funny, the senators could have been describing Trump and his inner circle. Unfortunately, they weren’t.

Neither Rubio nor Scott is running for president. They don’t have to worry about walking the tightrope DeSantis hopes will convey him to the White House. DeSantis knows that, as much as he wants to dethrone Trump, this is still Trump’s party.

This story was originally published June 9, 2023 at 2:16 PM.