DeSantis Backhandedly Defends Trump After Indictment
The New York Times Visitors from a foreign planet might think Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida had been delivered a tremendous gift this week when his main presidential rival was charged with mishandling the countrys national security secrets.
But as Mr. DeSantiss latest speech showed, this is a turn of events he will need to beware.
In an address to Republicans in North Carolina on Friday night, his first public remarks since the unsealing of federal charges against former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. DeSantis trod carefully and danced quickly past the subject.
Previewing how he might criticize the Justice Departments case without letting Mr. Trump entirely off the hook, he offered a somewhat backhanded defense of the now twice-indicted former president whose loyal followers Mr. DeSantis is seeking to avoid angering by drawing on his own experiences as a Navy lawyer.
Seeming to muse aloud, Mr. DeSantis asked what the Navy would have done to him had he taken classified documents while in military service. I would have been court-martialed in a New York minute, he said, in a riff on Mr. Trumps hometown.
