DeSantis dismisses Ramaswamy call to withdraw: ‘Just absurd’
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dismissed fellow GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s call to withdraw from Colorado and Maine as “just absurd.”
Ramaswamy, an advocate of former President Trump, called upon his 2024 rivals —DeSantis, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — to withdraw from the primary ballots in Colorado and Maine, after the states barred Trump citing violations of the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause.
Ramaswamy argued the decision, largely based on Trump’s perceived role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, is unconstitutional. He said DeSantis, Haley and Christie’s unwillingness to take their names off in solidarity with Trump “reveals that they’re actually complicit” in what is happening.
DeSantis denounced the biotech entrepreneur's request in an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham.
“Just absurd. I mean, I have a responsibility to accumulate delegates," DeSantis said in the interview, highlighted by Mediaite. "I’m not gonna unilaterally cede any, I’m gonna win as many as I can, and I’ve been very clear about both of those decisions and those states."
The Florida governor continued, saying that he believes the decisions in Maine and Colorado are “not consistent with the Constitution” and he does “expect them to get reversed” by the Supreme Court.
DeSantis also posed the question around President Biden, asking why he is eligible to be on the ballot amid the border security turmoil.
"I mean, if he has green-lit eight million illegals invading this country, is he eligible to be on?" the governor asked.
“So, we can play this game all along, I think it’s not going to end up well for our country,” DeSantis added. “But I do know this, that if any of the other ones of us had gotten kicked off the ballot, Trump would be spiking the football. Let’s just be clear, that that is the just the fact of the matter.”
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 19 that Trump would be removed from its primary ballot, claiming he engaged in insurrection by inflaming his supporters with false claims of election fraud and directing them to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. An appeal to that case is expected to be heard by the Supreme Court.
Maine’s secretary of state became the second state to ban the former president on Dec. 28. Trump filed an appeal Tuesday and under state law, the judge is required to decide the case within 20 days of the original decision.