Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said on Wednesday that the Colorado ruling keeping former President Donald Trump off the ballot is "unfair" — because it gives Trump an advantage.
DeSantis, who is largely polling in the single digits, claimed that the ruling was a "stunt" by the left and the media to "solidify support" for the former president.
The Florida governor made the remarks while speaking at the Westside Conservative Club Breakfast in Iowa.
“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.
DeSantis said that the move was “unfair,” and that 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 continued. “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.” DeSantis reacts to Trump being thrown off the Colorado ballot:
"Could we just say that Biden can't be on the ballot because he let in 8 million illegals into the country, and violated the Constitution?" pic.twitter.com/7Kp0iHsfpm
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) December 20, 2023
“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 claimed.
On Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court disqualified President Donald Trump from appearing on the 2024 GOP presidential primary ballot.
"A majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution," the ruling said. "Because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.”
The lawsuit was filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), a Washington D.C.-based watchdog group. They argued that former President Trump was involved in aiding an insurrection on January 6, 2021 — and therefore ineligible to run in the 2024 election.
As SCNR reported earlier in the day, Biden responded to the news of the ruling by saying that Trump "certainly supported an insurrection."
“Whether the 14th Amendment applies, we’ll let the Court make that decision,” Biden said. “He certainly supported an insurrection. No question about it. None. Zero. He seems to be doubling down on about everything.” BIDEN: "Whether the 14th Amendment applies, we'll let the Court make that decision" pic.twitter.com/IB93ReYyOk
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 20, 2023
Trump has not been charged or convicted of engaging in insurrection against the United States.
The Colorado Republican Party has said that they will "withdraw from the Primary as a Party and convert to a pure caucus system if this is allowed to stand."
Trump has indicated that he will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which holds a conservative majority.
