Donald Trump unmoved by Ron DeSantis’ support amid latest indictment

Donald Trump isn’t backing down from attacks on Ron DeSantis, despite the Florida Governor’s defense of his 2024 rival in recent stump speeches in the wake of a 37-count indictment for unlawful document retention.

“Well, we’ve got to finish the task. We want to win and we want to turn the country around. We want to make America great again,” Trump told Simon Conway on WHO Radio.

“So we have one race right before us. Now that’s a Primary and then we have the General Election and we’re leading both by a lot and, someday maybe (we’ll) ease up a little bit,” Trump said cryptically.

Trump went on to more familiar tropes, saying he was “very disappointed” in DeSantis.

“I help a lot of people and some people, I more than help. And in this case, we got him elected. And there’s some others like that too, but they’re, they’re grateful, at least grateful for somebody that you got elected,” Trump said, again blasting DeSantis for a lack of gratitude.

“And then he goes out and he announces, ‘Yes, I would run for President,'” Trump said, noting DeSantis first said he had “no comment” when asked.

“That to me means he’s running. And I said, ‘Boy, that’s a very disloyal person.’ So I do like loyal people. I will say that.”

On Friday night, the Governor alluded to Trump’s legal issues regarding retaining classified documents, invoking principles of whataboutism to attack former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a political speech in North Carolina.

“When I was in Congress, I remember … Hillary had the e-mails with the classified and my view was, ‘Well, gee, you know, as a naval officer, if I would have taken classified to my apartment, I would have been court-martialed in a New York minute.’ And yet they seem to not care about that,” lamented DeSantis.

The Governor then asked rhetorically, if there was a “different standard for a Democrat Secretary of State versus a former Republican President.”

“I think there needs to be one standard of justice in this country. Let’s enforce it on everybody and make sure we all know the rules. You can’t have one faction of society, weaponizing the power of the state against factions that it doesn’t like,” DeSantis said. “And that’s what we’ve seen.”

DeSantis made the comments Friday night at the North Carolina Republican Party State Convention. While he didn’t mention Trump by name, the remarks were essentially an extended version of a tweet so valued by the former President’s political operation that it was spotlighted in an email showing intraparty support.

“The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society,” DeSantis tweeted. “We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation. Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary Clinton or Hunter Biden?”

The Trump release didn’t include DeSantis’ last sentence: “The DeSantis administration will bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all.”