Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) floated pardoning former President Donald Trump, his chief 2024 presidential rival, if elected president.

"Well, what I've said is very simple. I'm going to do what's right for the country. I don't think it would be good for the country to have an almost 80-year-old former president, go to prison," DeSantis said during an interview with conservative host Megyn Kelly on her SiriusXM show, which was recorded on Thursday but was released on Friday afternoon.

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"So that's a yes," Kelly retorted.

At 77 years old, Trump is 33 years older than DeSantis, who is 44. DeSantis has often touted his youthful energy on the campaign trail in a dig at both Trump and 80-year-old President Joe Biden.

DeSantis pointed to President Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal, which led to Nixon's resignation, as precedent for a potential pardon.

"I look at like, you know, Ford, pardoned Nixon. Took some heat for it but at the end of the day, it's like, do we want to move forward as a country?" DeSantis added. "Or do we want to be mired in these past controversies?"

"And I think the public wants a fresh start. I think they want somebody that’s gonna focus on their issues. We’ve had a lot that’s happened over the last five or six years, you know, I get that. But going forward, we’ve got all these issues that we’ve gotta deal with," DeSantis added.

On Thursday, special counsel Jack Smith released three new charges in a superseding indictment against Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents bringing the total charges against the former president for the incident to 40. Trump is accused of acting with Mar-a-Lago worker Carlos De Oliveira and Trump's other co-defendant, Walt Nauta, to try to delete surveillance footage at his Mar-a-Lago property.

During the interview with Kelly, DeSantis pushed back against Trump's claims that he begged for his endorsement during his 2018 Florida gubernatorial campaign. “Do you believe that? You tell me,” DeSantis said about the allegations. “I think we were on Air Force One and I said, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about running. Will you support me? Will you tweet for me?’ And he’s like ‘Yeah, I’ll tweet for you.’ And that was it.”

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Since DeSantis's successful 2018 race, he has fallen out with Trump, mostly due to him challenging the former president for the 2024 GOP nomination. DeSantis told Kelly that Trump now views him as a threat. DeSantis is Trump's closest rival in the primary race. He is the only candidate to consistently poll in the double digits behind Trump. But DeSantis's poll numbers have slid in recent months, and this week the campaign laid off 38 staffers, about one-third of the team.

“He doesn’t say that about his own vice president running against him. He doesn’t say that about his ambassador to the U.N. running against him," DeSantis said, referencing former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. "He doesn’t say that about other people he endorsed in the past who are now running against him. He only says that about me because I think he construes me as the only threat to his winning the nomination."