Presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) admitted that he never wanted former President Donald Trump to seek the presidency again after leaving office in Jan. 2021, long before he was indicted several times in the summer of 2023.
"I've never thought he should run, to begin with — even before all the legal cases — when he left office in January of 2021," he said Tuesday, speaking with popular conservative Boston, Massachusetts radio host Dan Rea on WBZ radio's NightSide with Dan Rea.
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DeSantis's comments came nearly 24 hours after Trump was indicted in his fourth case by Georgia grand jury on charges related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Rea asked the Florida governor if Trump should consider stepping aside "because he has so much on his plate legally." He further prompted DeSantis whether Trump should do so "for his party and for his country."
DeSantis prefaced, "I think he did a lot of good things, and I give him credit for that, but I never thought it was a good idea for him to run again."
"I think we need a candidate who's going to be able to win a clear-cut victory," DeSantis continued. "We need a candidate that's actually going to be able to deliver on all the things that we've been talking about — that requires focus and discipline."
"We also need somebody that can try to unite this country again," DeSantis added.
Despite being indicted in four different cases, Trump still leads in Republican primary polling. The former president has maintained double-digit leads over each of his competitors.
DeSantis, specifically, has been the main subject of Trump's ire. The president has repeatedly branded him disloyal and urged him to drop out of the race. The super PAC supporting Trump's 2024 bid spent the entire spring, even before DeSantis's campaign announcement — attacking the Florida governor in a series of ads, spending over $20 million. The barrage of negative ads appears to have paid off, however. The PAC noted that DeSantis's polling average declined during the same period that the ads were running.
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The DeSantis campaign maintains that the focus on Trump is because he is the biggest threat to the former president and the best-equipped candidate to beat President Joe Biden in a general election.
"Republicans, Democrats, and the legacy media are united in their full-on assault of Ron DeSantis because he is the only candidate who can beat Joe Biden," DeSantis campaign communications director Andrew Romeo previously said.