Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) says he never thought Donald Trump should run for president again, from the minute the ex-president left office in 2021 through his current legal troubles — and that Trump doesn’t have the focus to win the general election or to deliver on promises even if he did.

DeSantis spoke with Boston radio host Dan Rea on iHeartRadio’s Nightside Tuesday about the election and other issues and was asked whether Trump should exit the 2024 race now, after all the indictments and his many legal troubles.

“I’m not trying to lure you off the cliff here,” Rea said. “But, do you think Donald Trump should be considering at some point that maybe he would do better for himself, for his family, and for his party, and for his country to step aside because he has so much on his plate legally?”

“Well, look, I never thought he should run to begin with even before all these legal cases, when he left office in January of 2021,” said DeSantis. “I think he did a lot of good things, and I and I give him credit for that. But I never thought it was a good idea for him to run again.”

DeSantis noted that Trump gets sympathy from the Republican base for his legal troubles because the DOJ “basically framed him for Russia collusion,” but said that if the election is about that instead of about President Joe Biden’s failures then it’s “likely Biden is going to get reelected.”

DeSantis was asked about Trump’s indictments several times this week and said at one point that “clearly, there’s been a change in some of the polling since the Alvin Bragg case was brought,” but added that even GOP primary voters are “considering” other candidates.

“He’s got a base, but it’s not enough to win a plurality in the primary right now,” he said. “So think there’s a lot of voters that are up for grabs.” Here is some more of their conversation:

REA: Let me ask you one very serious question. Former President Trump indicted now four times. Do you think — and again, I’m not trying to to lure you off the cliff here– But, do you think Donald Trump should be considering at some point that maybe he would do better for himself, for his family, and for his party, and for his country to step aside because he has so much on his plate legally?

DESANTIS: Well, look, I never thought he should run to begin with even before all these legal cases, when he left office in January of 2021. I think he did a lot of good things, and I and I give him credit for that. But I never thought it was a good idea for him to run again.

Because, one, I think we need a candidate who’s going to be able to win a clear-cut victory. Two, we need a candidate that’s actually going to be able to deliver on all the things that we’ve been talking about. And that requires focus and discipline, can’t be distracted, you can’t have all these other things.

But we also need somebody that can try to unite this country again. I mean, we’re so divided. And I think what we were able to do in Florida, much as the media tried to attack us, you know, we won a 60/40 reelection victory because I think a lot of the stuff we were doing during COVID, with education were just, was common sense. And we really need a dose of that again.

So I didn’t think he should have run to begin with apart from these cases. I think that, you know, on the one hand, people look at how he’s been treated historically. So, for example, with the Russia collusion. That’s not a bell you can just un-ring. I mean, you had FBI, you had intelligence, you had people in Department of Justice that basically framed him for Russia collusion and tried to do that. It was a gross abuse of power.

So I think our voters look at a lot of this stuff through that prism of how government has misbehaved against him in the past. And I think he’s gotten a lot of sympathy for it.

Going forward, though, I think if the election is about why Biden has failed and what we’re going to do to get the country on the right track, reverse our our nation’s decline, restore American greatness, we are going to win. If the election is about things like what document was left by the toilet at Mar-a-Lago, if it’s about things that happened in 2020 and all this stuff, if that is what the election’s a referendum on, then Republicans are going to lose.

And I believed that from the beginning, all the way to the present. The more distractions that are out there, the more likely Biden is going to get reelected.

Listen to the clip above, via Nightside with Dan Rea.

The post Surrender, Trump? Radio Host Straight Up Asks DeSantis If Trump Should Drop Out Over Indictments: ‘Serious Question’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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