The likely presidential candidate is reacting to a headline from earlier this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is going to run for President in 2024.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t hear it here first.\u00a0 We all know it, and he knows we know it, and he\u2019s just waiting until the last possible minute to slink into the race, hoping that some combination of DOJ\/Manhattan\/Atlanta takes down Donald Trump before he has to spend any money doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Heck, even Trump folks know it. That\u2019s why a Super PAC backing the former President has taken legal action against DeSantis<\/a>, claiming that the Sunshine State lawmaker is running afoul of campaign finance regulations with a \u201cshadow campaign\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DeSantis\u2019 tardy announcement has gifted the Florida Governor some time to massage his message, however, and DeSantis\u2019 latest change of narrative is not going unnoticed.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Florida\u2019s Gov. Ron DeSantis has branded Vladimir Putin a \u201cwar criminal\u201d and demanded he be \u201cheld accountable\u201d for his barbaric invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taking a tougher tone from his statement last week appearing to dismiss the year-long war as a \u201cterritorial dispute,\u201d<\/a> DeSantis now says Russia was WRONG to invade Ukraine and was WRONG to invade and take over Crimea in 2014, and won\u2019t win the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And he\u2019s made his strongest attack yet on Russia\u2019s dictator, calling him a loser who is \u201cbasically a gas station with a bunch of nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n DeSantis\u2019 remarkably soft tone on Ukraine earlier in the week made headlines, and so the Florida leader made sure that his corrective tone was heard far and wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DeSantis made the new comments in a wide-ranging TV interview for \u2026 \u201cPiers Morgan Uncensored,\u201d which airs on Fox Nation tomorrow and has already made headlines for his attack on potential Republican nominee Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His assertion, in a statement to Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, that it is not in America\u2019s \u201cvital national interests\u201d to become \u201cfurther entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia\u201d was strongly criticized by numerous senior Republicans<\/a> \u2014 including Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When \u2026 asked \u2026 specifically if he regretted using the phrase \u201cterritorial dispute,\u201d DeSantis replied, \u201cWell, I think it\u2019s been mischaracterized. Obviously, Russia invaded (last year) \u2014 that was wrong. They invaded Crimea and took that in 2014 \u2014 That was wrong.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n And then:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat I\u2019m referring to is where the fighting is going on now which is that eastern border region Donbas, and then Crimea, and you have a situation where Russia has had that. I don\u2019t think legitimately but they had. There\u2019s a lot of ethnic Russians there. So, that\u2019s some difficult fighting and that\u2019s what I was referring to and so it wasn\u2019t that I thought Russia had a right to that, and so if I should have made that more clear, I could have done it, but I think the larger point is, okay, Russia is not showing the ability to take over Ukraine, to topple the government or certainly to threaten NATO. That\u2019s a good thing. I just don\u2019t think that\u2019s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified (in invading) \u2013 that\u2019s nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n DeSantis has consistently polled as the number two choice among Republicans for the 2024 presidential nomination, but Donald Trump\u2019s recent rise in popularity among GOP voters could put him out of reach\u2026unless of course DeSantis abandons his reluctance \u2013 and in a hurry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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