Ron DeSantis Says ‘Just Absurd’ to Remove Name from Ballot of States Rejecting Trump: ‘I’m Not Gonna Unilaterally Cede’
It is “just absurd” to remove one’s name from the ballot in states that are attempting to deem former President Donald Trump ineligible to appear on their respective ballots, presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis said this week amid calls from Vivek Ramaswamy urging candidates to stand in solidarity against this form of lawfare and election interference and remove their names from the ballot as well.
“Just absurd,” DeSantis said during a Tuesday appearance on the Ingraham Angle.
“I mean, I have a responsibility to accumulate delegates. I’m not gonna unilaterally cede any. I’m gonna win as many as I can. And I’ve been very clear about both of those decisions and those states,’ DeSantis continued, adding that it is “not consistent with the Constitution.”
“I do expect them to get reversed. I’ve raised the question about Biden. I mean, if he has green-lit eight million illegals invading this country, is he eligible to be on?” DeSantis asked, defending his position.
“So we can play this game all along. I think it’s not going to end up well for our country. But I do know this, that if any of the other ones of us had gotten kicked off the ballot, Trump would be spiking the football, let’s just be clear. That is just the fact of the matter,” DeSantis added.
Ramaswamy has long called on his fellow competitors to join him in vowing to take his name off the ballot if Trump is disqualified in states such as Colorado and Maine.
“If they’re going to behave in that unconstitutional way, the Republican candidates can actually stop this form of election interference,” Ramaswamy said in a Monday appearance on NewsNation Prime.
“So I said I would remove my name from those ballots, and I called on the other Republicans in the race to do the same thing,” he continued, adding that if these judges in Colorado and the Secretary of State in Maine are going to “to behave in that unconstitutional way, the Republican candidates can actually stop this form of election interference.”
He blasted his GOP competitors accusing them of being silent and “sidestepping the issue.”
“But if every Republican removes themselves, that nullifies Maine and it nullifies Colorado, if they remove a candidate unconstitutionally from that ballot,” he contended, urging DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Chris Christie to join him.
Both Haley and DeSantis have expressed disapproval of the controversial 4-3 ruling in Colorado that deemed Trump ineligible to appear on the ballot, citing the Insurrection Clause in Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. More specifically, DeSantis said the U.S. Supreme Court should reverse the ruling, and Haley has said that judges should not interfere in the election.
“But I will beat him fair and square. We don’t need to have judges making these decisions, we need voters to make these decisions,” she stated.
Even Christie, a fierce Trump critic, disagreed with the Colorado decision.
“What I will say is I do not believe Donald Trump should be prevented from being president of the United States by any court,” Christie said. “I think he should be prevented from being the president of the United States by the voters of this country.”
Trump is appealing the decisions in both Colorado and Maine and will remain on the ballot in Colorado while the process plays out. The decision of Maine’s Democrat Secretary of State Shenna Bellows will not be enforced, either, until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in, but Trump has appealed that decision as well.
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