Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis sought to position himself as a more hardcore conservative candidate when it comes to Supreme Court justices, but DeSantis' Monday criticism got former President Donald Trump's attention.
DeSantis vowed to get even more conservative justices on the Supreme Court, saying former President Donald Trump's Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett are not as conservative as Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
"I would say we'll do better than that," DeSantis told "The Hugh Hewitt Podcast" on Monday morning. "I mean, I respect the three appointees he did, but none of those three are at the same level of Justices Thomas and Justice Alito. I think they are the gold standard, and so my justices will be along the lines of a Sam Alito and a Clarence Thomas."
The Trump campaign fired back in a statement of rebuke.
"Today, Ron DeSanctimonious bizarrely announced he does not support the three Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices, who overturned the Roe v. Wade decision," the statement read. "Ron's latest flip-flop has left many wondering if he tripped in his high-heel boots and hit his head or is simply hallucinating from his disastrous event in Oklahoma last weekend, as he seems to have forgotten countless statements he made in the past praising President Trump’s nominations of Justice Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
"In 2017, Ron DeSantis lauded Justice Neil Gorsuch as a 'promising choice,' 'demonstrated a strong grasp of the Constitution,' and even compared Gorsuch to 'that of Justice Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas.'
"If you created a nominee from scratch with the goal of filling Scalia's large shoes, such a nominee would look a lot like Neil Gorsuch,' DeSantis wrote in 2017."
The Trump campaign also fired back at DeSantis hailing his Florida appointments.
"And in Florida, I inherited a very liberal state Supreme Court, maybe the most liberal in the country, very activist, but I was able to replace three of the four liberals my first month in office with conservative justices," DeSantis told Hewitt.
"I've since been able to make a number of appointments since then. So we now have the most conservative state Supreme Court in the country. And so I think we have a really good track record on doing that. And in fact, two of my Supreme Court picks in my first year of office were elevated to the 11th Circuit by President Donald Trump."
But the Trump campaign said DeSantis rejects the criticism with some of its own toward its chief primary challenger.
"As governor, Ron DeSantis has a history of terrible appointments," the Trump campaign statement concluded. "A DeSantis-appointed Florida Secretary of State lasted only 16 days in the job before resigning in scandal.
"In January 2023, DeSantis appointed Dave Kerner — a radical Democrat politician — to lead the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. As Palm Beach County mayor, Kerner installed some of the most draconian lockdowns and mask mandates in the nation, forming an armed COVID lockdown police force and shutting down dozens of businesses in Palm Beach County."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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