Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis doubled down on pardoning former President Donald Trump if he wins the presidential election next year.
DeSantis, who floated that idea earlier this week, claimed sparing Trump from prison would be good for the country.
“Well, what I’ve said is very simple,” DeSantis said on “The Megyn Kelly Show” in an interview Friday. “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.”
“It doesn’t seem like it would be a good thing,” he told host Megyn Kelly. “And I look at like, you know, [former President Gerald] Ford pardoned [former President Richard] 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 claimed staying “mired in these past controversies” would be unhealthy — even though pundits and analysts have argued that Nixon’s pardon was a historic mistake.
Earlier this year, DeSantis suggested that Trump, who is being investigated for his alleged involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, and those who were convicted of federal offenses for storming the building that day should “have their cases heard by a Republican president.”
He expanded on his thoughts on this in an interview with Russell Brand this month.
“It was not an insurrection,” he told the comedian.
“These were people that were there to attend a rally, and then they were there to protest,” he said. “Now, it devolved, and it devolved into a riot, but the idea that this was a plan to somehow overthrow the government of the United States is not true.”
Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press
Whether impassioned Republican citizens who breached the Capitol actually believed they were taking over the government remains unclear. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Trump, however, had actively laid out a “road map to an attempted coup.”
While Trump continues to be investigated for a series of crimes, DeSantis isn’t the only Republican presidential hopeful currently considering a pardon. Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Perry Johnson and Larry Elder have all previously voiced as much.
DeSantis has nonetheless struggled to garner excitement among Republican voters compared to the former president.
Trump, who assured his base Friday that he would continue to run for president even if convicted, said there is “nothing in the Constitution” barring him from doing so.
The disgraced president has curated a startling résumé of indictments — and is being investigated for his alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection, attempts to overturn the 2020 election and for spreading lies about voter fraud.