playing the long game
Ron DeSantis won't say if he believes Pence could have overturned Trump's loss
Florida governor and rumoured 2024 hopeful Ron DeSantis (R) is keeping quiet — at least on this latest piece of GOP drama.
When asked by a reporter who he sides with in the ongoing debacle concerning former Vice President Mike Pence's certifcation of the 2020 election and former President Donald Trump (who has claimed Pence could have overturned the results), DeSantis replied, "I'm not. I ...," before cutting himself off, NBC News reports.
When further pressed, DeSantis changed the subject and commended his "great working relationship" with the Trump administration, and then came after President Biden for blocking his agenda, per NBC News.
DeSantis' non-answer likely has something to do, if not much to do, with a possible White House bid and the political kiss of death that is crossing Trump (hey, just look at GOP Reps. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Liz Cheney (Wyo.). Notably, early polls rank DeSantis as a distant second to Trump in the 2024 presidential race, or the frontrunner should the former president decline to run, NBC News notes.
On Friday, Pence spoke out against his ex-boss' claims and correctly said "Trump is wrong" for suggesting the vice president could have changed the outcome of the contest.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is assessing whether to reform the Electoral Count Act so as to remove any ambiguity from the vice president's role in the process and "give the courts more say" in the end, notes NBC News.