PANAMA CITY, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis largely deflected when asked about a possible indictment of former President Donald Trump Monday. Still, he did make light of the former president over his current problems.
Former President Trump said over the weekend that he expected to be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury as early as Tuesday. While nothing official has confirmed the former president's claim, Trump's words sent the political world into a frenzy over the weekend.
When asked about the issue Monday, Governor DeSantis spoke more about billionaire George Soros than he did about the former president's legal troubles.
"But I do know this; the Manhattan district attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor. So he, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety," DeSantis said.
After saying the Manhattan District Attorney's office actions made citizens "become less safe," DeSantis did mention why Trump was in the current legal morass.
"So, you’re talking about this situation with, and look, I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. I just, I can’t speak to that," DeSantis said to a few laughs from the crowd in attendance.
He continued to take aim at the Manhattan D.A.'s office and repeatedly invoked George Soros' name. DeSantis also said he had gone after a "Soros" district attorney.
"These Soros district attorneys are a menace to society and I'm just glad I'm the only governor in the country that's actually removed one during my tenure," DeSantis said of his removal of former Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren.
DeSantis' full comment on the question about Trump can be read below.
“So, I’ve seen rumors, I have not seen any facts yet, so I don’t know what’s going to happen.
But I do know this, the Manhattan district attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor. So he, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety.
He has downgraded over 50 percent of the felonies to misdemeanors. He says he doesn’t even want to have jail time for the vast, vast majority of crimes. And what we’ve seen in Manhattan is we’ve seen the crime rate go up and we’ve seen citizens become less safe.
So, you’re talking about this situation with, and look, I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. I just, I can’t speak to that.
What I can speak to is that if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction and he chooses to go back many, many years ago and he tries to use something about porn star hush money payments, yknow, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office and I think that’s fundamentally wrong,
I also think it’s important to point out when you talk about these Soros-funded prosecutors; yes they may do a high-profile, politicized prosecution, and that’s bad, but the real victims are ordinary New Yorkers, ordinary Americans in all these different jurisdictions, that they get victimized every day because of the reckless political agenda that these Soros D.A.’s bring to their job. They ignore crime and they empower criminals and that hurts people, hurts a lot of people every single day.
These Soros district attorneys are a menace to society and I’m just glad I’m the only governor in the country that’s actually removed one during my tenure.
We are not involved in this, we won’t be involved in this. I have no interest in getting involved in some type of manufactured circus by some Soros DA. Okay. He’s trying to do a political spectacle. He’s trying to virtue signal for his base. I’ve got real issues that I got to deal with here in the state of Florida. We’re obviously shutting down CBDC, which is important, we’ve got so many important things in front of the legislature. I’ve got to spend my time on issues that actually matter to people. I can’t spend my time worrying about things of that nature.
So we’re not going to be involved with it in any way. I’m fighting for Floridians and I’m fighting back against Biden, and that’s what I do every single day.”
