DeSantis Warns: GOP Will Suffer from Focus on Trump’s Legal Troubles

If this year’s race is about former President Donald Trump’s legal troubles, it is going to be a “really nasty election” that does not put Republicans “in a good position to win,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told CBS News’ “Face The Nation” on Sunday.

“I think if we’re re-litigating the past elections, if it’s about Donald Trump or his legal issues or criminal trials or all that stuff, I think it’s going to be a really nasty election,” DeSantis said. “I don’t think that puts Republicans in a good position to win. So we need to have an election on the issues. We need a candidate that can win a clear-cut victory, and we need to start looking forward as a country.”

Despite polls that show an overwhelming victory for Trump in the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses, as well as overall in the Republican presidential primaries, DeSantis insisted that “we’re going to do well in Iowa, but we’re also going to be competing in all these other states. And I think that there’s a lot of real estate. I think a lot of things are going to happen.”

DeSantis has spent the majority of his time and most of his resources on doing well in Iowa and was once viewed as the favorite to challenge Trump, but he is now struggling in the polls to fend off a surging Nikki Haley for second place.

The Florida governor criticized Trump for refusing to participate in debates, saying, “If you’re going to stand for nomination, you should be able to stand on a stage to do it … The idea that he can go and just read off the teleprompter for 45 minutes and then go back home, that doesn’t cut it in Iowa. And that doesn’t cut it in a lot of these states. And so, let’s go. Get on the stage and let’s have the debate of ideas, and I hope Donald Trump will be willing to do that.”

DeSantis also slammed the Biden administration’s handling of the southern border, an issue that polls show Americans are increasingly concerned about.

“I’m here in Iowa now talking to people — in New Hampshire, South Carolina, these early states,” DeSantis said. “They’re frustrated with how the federal government will treat people coming into our country illegally, better than Americans in some respects. Free … lodging, free transportation.”

He stressed that “as president, I am going to say state and localities have the authority to enforce immigration laws, as long as they’re upholding the law.”