DeSantis Open to Pardoning Trump, Says Trump Could Have Done More on January 6
“I don’t think it would be good for the country to have an almost 80-year-old former president go to prison.”
Presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gave the impression that he would be open to pardoning Trump but also thinks he could have done more on January 6.
“Given your views on the weaponization of government, would you commit to pardoning him on any federal charges against him?” Kelly asked.
“What I’ve said is very simple. I’m gonna 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,” DeSantis said, noting Trump’s age, a full 33 years older than him at age 77.
“So that’s a yes?” Kelly pressed.
“It just doesn’t seem like it would be a good thing. And I look at like, you know, Ford pardoned Nixon, took some heat for it, but at the end of the day, it’s like, do we wanna move forward as a country or do we want to be mired in these past controversies? And I think the public wants a fresh start. I think they want somebody that’s gonna focus on their issues. We’ve had a lot that’s happened over the last five or six years, you know, I get that. But going forward, we’ve got all these issues that we’ve gotta deal with,” DeSantis said.
"Would you commit to pardoning" Trump, asks @MegynKelly.
"I don't think it would be good for the country to have an almost 80-year-old former president go to prison," says Gov. @RonDeSantis.
FULL 50-minute interview airs tomorrow at NoonET. Subscribe:https://t.co/Y12z2uKGMb pic.twitter.com/2geQDBcsN2
— The Megyn Kelly Show (@MegynKellyShow) July 28, 2023
DeSANTIS: “Well, look, I think it’s — I think it’s been well-documented, kind of his conduct when it first started, how of he sat there. You know, could have obviously leaned in harder. I mean, even his own kids were texting saying he needs to do more, he needs to do more. Is that criminal, though? I mean, that’s the thing when you talk about a grand jury and a potential criminal indictment.”
.@MegynKelly: "You've said Trump should have done more on January 6. Like what?"@RonDeSantis: "…even his own kids were texting, saying he needs to do more."
Watch the full answer on Trump's indictments here, and full interview later this afternoon:https://t.co/essW7JcyjX pic.twitter.com/kU9RCw04T5
— The Megyn Kelly Show (@MegynKellyShow) July 28, 2023
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Comments
He should have said yes the DOJ should only prosecute people for crimes not endless witch hunts against political enemies of the permanent DC bureaucracy.
Weak response.
Yes, a very weak response.
Ron made a terrible mistake getting in bed with the swamp GOPe. They appealed to his ego, and he bit, and now -like any honest person getting in bed with the GOPe – he’ll be hung out to dry.
What Ron SHOULD have done, was to check his ego, be patient, and he’d have been vice president of the United States in 2024.
But he fu-ked it up for all of us.
DeSantis always passes on the opportunity. What more could Trump do? He offered the National Guard days ahead and he said go peacefully. We need a quicker twitter response?
Who placed the fake bombs, the agitators and instigators? Who opened the doors to the capitol from the inside and who gave orders to wave people in?
We have already forgotten the Republicans were goi.g to challenge the election and ask for a review of certain anomalies. Why was it so important the left to thwart this process. Now the anomalies are conspiracy theory and the plan to challenge them are criminal.
Thanks for confirming you don’t think Hillary did anything wrong.
What is wrong with Hillary is that she is breathing.
In other words you don’t think her committing exactly the same crime Trump did was wrong, you fully back Comey’s decision that she shouldn’t be prosecuted you just lied when you claimed to detest the special treatment she got you actually meant I support it.
What crime did Trump commit? Name it. Name the applicable law. List the elements, and the evidence that supports each one.
Worse: she’s doing other bodily functions.
Well, Ron just fell on his pecker. How’z about talking about defunding the DOJ? Ya know, they could’a done more to stop that fraudulent RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA soft coup we endured for 4 years. For comparison, you think people are tired of hearing about the stolen 2020 election? Well, you better believe they’re tired of hearing about the Jan 6 coup that wasn’t.
Weak? Try disgraceful. This guy is ignoring the weaponization of the criminal justice process by the DOJ/FBI to target political enemies. Maybe the most serious abuse of federal law enforcement power in the history of this country and he’s oblivious or just feigning ignorance. Don’t expect any serious reform of the DOJ/FBI or any federal agency if he assumes power.
What a terrible answer.
You’re trying to split the baby and pretend that these charges are somehow legitimate, and that you’re some kind of warrior for conservatives for pardoning him.
PARDON is not the issue, and never will be, absolutely nobody cares about that aspect of it.
What are you going to do about the insane politicization of the DoJ, DeSantis.
He needs to fire whatever DC uniparty consultant came up with that answer for him.
“Trump but also thinks he could have done more on January 6.”
This is bullshit, nearly all media and social media conspired to silence Trump. and then used the opportunity to spread false narratives. That was racketeering. How was Trump supposed to do more?
Trump did everything he could to make vast crowd as angry as humanly possible, darn right he acted badly Jan 6th which is what the public outside of Trump worshippers think.
I don’t believe Trump is criminally or legally responsible for the rioters breaching the capitol, although his rhetoric following the election certainly inspired it. Clearly the central core individuals (Oathkeepers, Proud Boys, etc.) — +/- additional embedded government agitators— arrived that day with that intention. Apart from the hardcore Lefties, I don’t think most Americans believe his speech that day caused the breach.
It is his behavior during the immediate aftermath of the breach for which he draws most criticism from Republican non-Trumpophiles and political independents. He should have immediately tweeted his displeasure with the action and issued an order to stand down. I doubt many within the Capitol would have left, but Trump would have spared himself the negative reaction to his inaction.
Instead, he waited. Why? Obviously I don’t know him, but I suspect he was flattered by the breach. It was likely a boost to his ego.
I personally believe that his behavior during the immediate aftermath of J6 has cost him many Independent votes without which he cannot win the general election in 2024.
You know he did, right? And as soon as he did what you say he should do, he was deplatformed.
Yeah but we have the legal precedent of Hillary actually doing all that and worse, likely for money to the Foundation for Clintons, without actually being president of the United states, only for her to be patted on her demon-filled head by the FBI/DOJ, given a glass of Chardonnay and allowed to walk freely among the woods. That ship that you’re describing? See that dot way over there in the horizon? It’s already sailed.
I agree he is not legally responsible.
But do you have any idea how high a bar that is?
The incitement standard in law is a good standard for “should we throw such and such in jail (almost always to the point you are safe saying in every case the answer is no).
It isn’t a good standard for moral responsibility and a very large majority of the public says Trump is responsible (every poll has shown that.
Like me the public has been shown to think it was not an insurrection but a riot caused by an explosion of anger.
The oath keepers/proud boys are just a shiny distraction, most arrested protestors are just ordinary people who had a moment of bad judgement due to anger.
I largely agree with what you said, actually I agree with just about all of it, except I think the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys just happened to be there, I think the breach was done by ordinary people too angry to think things through.
The charges are legitimate. Trump broke multiple laws, took classified documents, shared them with unauthorized people and refused to return them and lied about them, and tried to get his staff to destroy evidence.
Oh, you mean exactly what Hillary did, and what you claimed literally less than 5 minutes ago in this thread would have just been a witch-hunt?
The only difference is Trump was President and actually had the right to do it.
Clinton took classified documents, shared them with unauthorized people and god knows how many other countries that could have easily hacker her, and DID destroy the bulk of the evidence rather than turn it over.
But of course leftists like you don’t care about that. You just care about Orange Man Bad.
1. Trump was not president after he left office you god damned moron.
2. Trump did not declassify our plans for what to do in case of war with Iran
3. All orders must be issued in either word spoken or writing or they are not orders.
4. Name when the hell I defended Hillary you jackass. Name it now.
5. Trump did exactly the same thing and no he wasn’t president when he did it, and no he did not have the right to.
6. James Comey did not have the right to do as he did, and it was considered outrageous on the right. Trump could have and should have named a special prosecutor over it and he would have had her convicted just as everyone else who did that was.
Finally TRUMP WASN’T PRESIDENT.
The SECOND your TERM ends in this country YOU NO LONGER HOlD OFFICE. We are not a monarchy you do not hold title to office for life in this country.
You are a hack, and a jackass and I dearly hope you don’t put words in other peoples mouth IRL because when you do that people don’t judge you (as they should) they judge your cause.
It isn’t enough for jackasses like you that someone thinks Hillary did the same thing, you have to force them to say Trump did nothing wrong, and the prosecution is illegitimate when no Trump did something wrong, he broke the law, and the prosecution is legitimate.
And here come the lies.
1) Whether he was President is irrelevant. This was legally ended decades ago when Bill Clinton had classified information in his freaking sock drawer, and they determined that it didn’t matter.
2) The indictment never says that Trump had those documents. That’s one of the LIES that leftists like you tell. It wasn’t in the documents the FBI took, and it’s not one of the documents he’s been indicted for. What he and his lawyers have already said the cherry-picked and illegally leaked recording is him holding a newspaper with the article just published before that (which has already clearly been identified and verified to exist), claiming Trump wanted to invade Iran, and him saying it was moron Milley.
3) No, they don’t. Another leftist lie. The Bill Clinton precedent and many others has ended that. If so, literally every President in the last 100 years could be arrested.
4) Literally in THIS THREAD you responded to a comment of ‘He should have said yes the DOJ should only prosecute people for crimes not endless witch hunts against political enemies of the permanent DC bureaucracy.’ with ‘So you agree Hillary did nothing wrong’.
The ONLY possible interpretation of this is that you think Hillary did nothing wrong and prosecuting her would be a witch hunt.
So shut the hell up and stop lying, jackass moron.
5) Now literally the next sentence you are once again defending Hillary after lying about previously defending her, claiming Trump ‘did exactly the same thing’. No, he didn’t. HILLARY WAS NEVER PRESIDENT, and there is ZERO defense. Trump was President, and legally this exact thing has been done over 10 times by former Presidents.
6) Oh now you’re suddenly going to try to claim Hillary is guilty, and that us saying she shoudl have been prosecuted somehow ‘proves’ we think
What are you, six?
Let me explain this slow.
LEFTISTS have set the standard that mishandling classified information should not be prosecuted by their abject refusal to ever admit what Hillary did was illegal.
Ergo, nobody on the right cares about their sudden BS about OMG TRUMP IS CRIMINAL.
The left set the standard, now leftists like you are suddenly pitching fits that the right is agreeing that’s the standard.
Hillary committed multiple crimes. The left established that they didn’t care.
So now, WE DO NOT CARE, because YOU and YOUR SIDE have established that we shouldn’t.
OMG YOU HYPOCRITS FOR WANTING HILLARY PROSECUTED!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, we’re acknowledging that’s the new standard. And in fact, Trump met a significantly higher standard because he actually has a legal defense, while criminals like Pence, Biden and Hillary absolutely do NOT.
In short, shut the hell up you lying leftist jackass, in case you hadn’t noticed, you are convincing NOBODY on this site.
Allegedly. Let’s keep the presumption innocence instead of drifting into Queen of Hearts ‘first the verdict then the trial’.
We are allowed to look at the evidence, including visual evidence.
The prosecutors have to be lying about what documents they took in the raid for Trump to be innocent.
If I had been discovered with documents detailing our plans for invading Iran in case of war on February 1st 2021 I would have been arrested and the number of people here insisting I did nothing wrong would be zero. The reason is nobody was told they got declassified which means no such order was ever issued which means they weren’t declassified.
I have many times stated I don’t think Trump should be prosecuted for this because it is exactly what Hillary did, but he did it, and it was clearly illegal, he knew it was illegal, when given a chance to make things right and avoid prosecution by turning over the documents he instructed his lawyers to lie instead.
To be frank about the case what is wrong isn’t that Trump is being prosecuted but that Hillary wasn’t. James Comey does not make law, and the fact is people got prosecuted for this both before and after Hillary. She got a double standard that applied only to herself.
Again, Cite the law, name the crime, list the elements, say what evidence supports your position.
And with respect to the comparison to Hillary, be sure to address the legal difference between a President and a Cabinet Official, as well as deliberate, intentional act of using an unsecured server for government documents, which was pathetically open to breach, and was breached by multiple entities, including rival foreign governments..
Don’t forget the FACT that in order for classified information to be on said unsecured server, it had to be intentionally removed from the classified environment and intentionally uploaded.
Nothing supports Danny’s position, and he knows it.
Not true. Danny’s position is supported by a house of cards.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1924
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/title18a/node16&edition=prelim
https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1978-act.html
https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/presidential-records-act
Retaining the military plans for what to do in case of war with Iran is in fact against the law. People have gone to prison for doing exactly what Trump did for example
People ranging from Navy Reservist Bryan Nishimura to general l David Petraeus have gone down for what Trump did.
Taking top military secrets you are unauthorized to keep to a location you are unauthorized to keep them in and refusing to return them most definitely qualifies as violations.
Trump is charged with laws he has broken.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1924
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/title18a/node16&edition=prelim
https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1978-act.html
https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/presidential-records-act
To follow up here if I had been found with the plans for how we will attack Iran if we go to war with Iran in 2021 I would have been arrested and convicted, and would anyone here have shouted it was declassified?
For Trump to be innocent everyone has to be lying about what was recovered.
Gere I wonder if his being behind in the polls by 30% and having to layoff a great amount of his campaign staff has anything to with.
This is another example of the difference between a successful business man like Trump and a politician. DeSantis is better than many politicians, but still a politician. This stunt defines DeSantis.
The only reason this guy ran is because he is absolutely convinced Trump will be out of the picture by the time a candidate is picked. Everybody that isn’t blind, deaf, and dumb knew that nobody other than Trump had a chance in the primary.
Ron DeSantis probably knew as well – until toads like Karl Rove got his ear and sold him a dream, only to use him.
Ok liar
Ahh, the name calling
You lie and claim Karl Rove is involved with someone he never met because you want to use Karl Rove as a boogeyman you get called liar because you are a liar.
I am sick of giving courtesy to jackasses who give none in return. You spread lies like TheFineLiar above does you get called a liar.
He has been asked many times to back up his lies and he never does.
Karl Rove is politician turned commentator who left ALL of his relevance behind when he walked out of the White House with George W Bush BEFORE MANY CURRENT VOTERS WERE BORN.
The ONLY reason to mention him, and credit him with influence is in order to dehumanize/turn him into a boogeyman to use and then lie about him meeting with people.
So how about this.
He stops lying, he stops doing a dehumanization/boogeyman tactic and I stop calling him a liar (there are much worst and equally true things I could call a man who uses dehumanization as a method of persuasion).
Funny coming from a guy with the IQ of a toadstool
Ok asshole.
LOL…
I said when DeSantis announced that he made a huge mistake, but an awful lot of people were blinded by their Trump hatred and were just CONVINCED that DeSantis was going to magically win.
I said it when he first announced, and I’ll say it again.
DeSantis missed his window when he was actually polling close to Trump at the beginning of the year. He had to play ‘safe’ and wait until they passed their little law that let him run for President without having to resign and actually risk something. By then, it was too late,
He has run such a poor campaign I don’t think DeSantis can in win in 2028 anymore, either.
He pissed off virtually all of the MAGA crowd.
Well, I would say that DeSantis, himself, hasn’t, he’s given some weak answers, but has stayed away from actually attacking them.
The problem is DeSantis staff that is clearly being led by DC ‘consultants’, and what has pissed off the MAGA crowd are alleged DeSantis supporters like Danny (I say alleged because it’s laughably obvious he’s a leftist troll) and certain commenters on this blog who seem to think openly insulting Trump supporters will somehow convince them to switch to DeSantis.
Trump cheerleaders like Gonzo are pretty annoying, but at least Gonzo has the defense that Trump is, you know, actually winning the primary, and doesn’t NEED to convince anybody with their antics.
(incidentally, I say ‘their’ because I’ve heard people refer to Gonzo as a woman… is that actually the case? I don’t recall seeing Gonzo actually say)
The others that constantly whine about Trump ‘cultists’, Trumpkins, Trumplets, etc, and are pathologically incapable of saying anything about Trump without insulting both him and his supporters are just being STUPID by insulting the people that they need to win. They give a very strong impression that they know they’re losing and are just being petty and lashing out because they know they are losing.
How he didn’t see that coming….
Like I said: the maggots of the GOPe sold him the dream, and incredibly, he bit.
E Republicans & RINOs make it impossible to vote for the party. Whos is at the top matters. It is funny that some people think they can force MAGA people to vote for DeSantis. Some will, but that will not be enough for the party to win. I think America is screwed if DeSantis is the nominee, that DeSantis does not have the skills or will to lay it all on the line.
His mistake was trying to persuade people like you instead of just running towards the middle of the road but socially conservative voters he excels with.
That should be a lesson to all future candidate to ignore cultists.
Ah, yes, here comes the leftist insults.
Math is hard.
Trump is over 50%. ‘Middle of the road’ was never going to work. To get to 50%, DeSantis HAS to convince current Trump voters to switch to him.
And if you actually supported DeSantis, then openly insulting Trump supporters actively harms DeSantis and his chances, because in a truly shocking turn of events, people don’t change their minds by being insulted, and in fact, solidify their opinions.
I enjoy the work you are doing to make sure Trump wins!
1. We JUST HAD an election of Trump and Biden in a national environment where Trump candidates lost statewide races in places like Arizona and Michigan you idiot.
2. Biden leads Trump with middle of the road voters as does DeSantis. The issue is the primary.
3. I am talking on Legal Insurrection a blog, and I have been speaking here and getting insulted around the clock by Trump cultists for months. Your idea that I have to be a saint instead of a human and not just insult back is laughable you idiot.
4. When you weave fairytales prepare to be insulted.
5. Trump handed the Democrats the senate, DeSantis handed us victory over Disney. Trump handed the Democrats January 6th DeSantis handed us major victories in the crusade against CRT. If you cared at all about issues you wouldn’t be backing Trump.
Furthermore the amount of insulting Trump supporters do towards everyone else makes the idea anyone else owes them courtesy somewhat odd. First thing I am told when not insulting is that I am a leftist and a demand to defend antifa?
No act like that and you don’t get courtesy any longer.
Upthread. You guys are right. The democratic party capture of the federal bureaucracy is the key problem. Kelly’s question is puerile and DeSantis made it worse by answering it.
If Kelly wants to help The Cause she needs to internalize the key aspects of that reality and ask better informed questions.
Trump had a full term in office, he did nothing to reverse Obama’s capture of the bureaucracy.
He didn’t do anything about censorship either, or well any non-traditional issue.
We got tax cuts though.
You do know he can’t do all of that by himself and the GOP had both chambers for the two years of his presidency, right? And when he did try to reverse Obamacare McCain blew all that up very publicly because of his intense hatred for Trump, right?
1. Tell me what the hell undoing Obama’s capture of the Federal Bureaucracy has to do with Obamacare? The fact that he tried to repeal Obamacare (which requires congressional consent) but never did a thing about de politicizing the federal bureaucracy should tell you a lot about him.
2. The federal bureaucracy is beyond congress
3. The federal bureaucracy received no oversite from Trump who allowed it to go fully woke.
4. He got his tax cuts, he got his military budget hikes, he got his jail break. You can’t claim someone getting a vast majority of what he asks for from congress is betrayed by and stopped by congress.
His answer is measured and absolutely right.
Of course, the trumpets will disagree vehemently and try to act like he hasn’t said the oath of loyalty to Trump.
Trump sucked on Jan 6th….where was he to stop all of these agents from perpetrating this stuff? He had a couple weeks left in office…he pardoned none of the innocents (but plenty of his cronies), exposed none of the agents, and remained silent most of the time it was happening (but plenty loud beforehand).
Go ahead, come at me with your best shot, trumpets.
Nobody needs to come st you with your best shot. You sound stupid and foolish.
No he sounds like he has a brain which is more than can be said for you.
Did you forget the Gretchen Whitmer plot?
Trump sure did.
Everything he said is true.
Don’t by the Lefttist lie about January 6. Trump couldn’t do anything else on that stupid day because he didn’t do anything on that stupid day. As opposed to Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Eric Swalwell, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Coru Bush, and countless other Democrats Trump didn’t call for violence or advocate for it.
I’m tired of sorry ass Republicans being made to defend stupid stuff and be made to feel afraid to say things they know to be true. Notice how we never talk about any of the destruction made by the Leftists over the entirety of the Trump presidency. Stop it and stop bowing down to blatantly evil people.
I really hope you never talk about politics outside of the internet I really do. If you had said that to exactly the kind of person we need to persuade to vote Republican instead of Democrat you would have handed their vote to the Democrat.
Trump was wrong to protest Mike Pence doing his constitutional duty, he was wrong to try to get a crowd of many thousands of people angry right in front of the capitol, and he was wrong to drag his feet about issuing a response, and he was also wrong to reassure the protestors they were still in the right when he told them to stop violence and go home.
Nobody gives a dam about did he commit the crime of incitement, and nobody ever did. They care that he got thousands of people angry enough that committed a riot.
Why pardon someone who hasn’t been convicted?
Wouldn’t it be nice if Republicans pushed this question into the faces of these garbage reporters?
You have hopes for the GOP. We’ve got to break you of that.
Just look at the GOP Chairwoman: an idiot on the level of that idiot White House press secretary.
It’s well settled that presidents can do that, though.
Save time; save public humiliation; save attorney’s fees for prosecution and pardoned person.
Understood. But doesn’t a pardon imply guilt and conviction? Certainly that’s the way the admin, media and dems would play it … “Trump escaped punishment for his crimes” – that they were never proven in the 7-8 years they’ve been trying him wouldn’t matter. Were I Trump, I’d tell DeSantis and Kelly to SHOVE their PARDON – I’ll just continue proving their accusations are false in court and sue for fees and defamation. That the admin, media, dems keep trying is more a reflection on their character than Trump.
Come November, I’ll pull the lever for whomever is at the top of the R ticket. It won’t be for the candidate so much as it’ll be a resounding protest vote against the D’s.
Ronnie is a dick
Clearly
Is name calling a negative as you implied in a previous response to Danny or is it acceptable?
It’s acceptable for dick
He’s not. A poster
And I’m
Just stating the obvious
IOW it’s OK if you do it.
Chief, with anything associated with her Messiah (short of idolatrous worship) she can’t be reached by logic or common sense or common courtesy. For that reason I no longer try. DeSantis didn’t drop to his knees like gonzotx does in front of her life-size Trump doll, so to her he’s a “dick.”
Just highlighting the hypocrisy. I don’t have a chosen candidate to campaign for yet.
What’s funny to me about many of the Only Trump folks is that they ain’t registered as GoP voters yet they demand the voting membership of the GoP choose the candidate they want.
Very much a case of cart before the horse; register as a GoP voter then you can be taken seriously about which candidate should be selected as the GoP nominee.
That’s something unseemly about a blonde, way past her sell-buy date, not changing her routine as a concession to age.
Spoken like a true 9% candidate.
I support DeSantis. His answers are acceptable.
“Acceptable”. That’s all? That’s his problem
Look: he put himself in a hopeless position, thinking the GOPe maggots using him actually supported him.
In A MILLION YEARS: the maggots of the GOPe don’t want DeSantis any more than they want Trump. They just want to lose the election and keep the status quo. They’re no different than Clinton or Biden.
Who is winning in the 2024 GOP primary race for the nomination?
No one will wins. One candidate just loses more slowly because the general election is rigged.
Yes, but the biggest ‘rigging’ is by the sabotage of the GOPe.