(LifeSiteNews) – Florida Republican governor and Republican presidential contender Ron DeSantis said Friday that he was “looking at” the possibility of having President Joe Biden removed from the Sunshine State’s ballot under the same logic Democrats have invoked to bar former President Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado.
Last month, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that Trump was ineligible for the presidency under the Disqualification Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says that “[n]o person” may “hold any office” who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the United States, “or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Democrats argue, and the court agreed, that Trump did so by “engag[ing] in insurrection” by calling for the infamous January 6, 2021 demonstration to protest Congressional certification of his 2020 loss to Biden, which devolved into a riot at the U.S. Capitol Building. The FBI eventually had to admit it did not find evidence that the riot was intended by Trump or otherwise planned by those around him.
DeSantis and Trump’s other GOP competitors overwhelmingly denounced the ruling as a politically motivated abuse of power, a flouting of both facts and law, and an unwarranted meddling in the election process that ought to be overturned. The U.S. Supreme Court confirmed last week that it will review the Colorado ruling next month; even some anti-Trump liberals have acknowledged that disqualifying Trump is likely unconstitutional.
Fox News reported that Friday, after an Iowa campaign event, DeSantis reiterated to reporters, “I do think the U.S. Supreme Court is going to have to take the case. I do think they’re going to have to rein this in.” He added, “You could make a case — we’re actually, I’m actually looking at this in Florida now. Could we make a credible case that Biden, because of the invasion of eight million” illegal immigrants, should be removed from the ballot?
While stressing that “I don’t think that’s the right way to do it,” the governor said “I don’t believe in fighting with one hand tied behind your back. Whatever the rules are applied to us, we’re going to fight back and play the rules the other way … You know, we’ve got a better way forward. We’re not going to have to worry about those issues. And then when I become president, I’m going to be able to address all the lawfare and all the weaponization, and we’ll be able to end this stuff once and for all.”
This is not the first time DeSantis has floated the possibility, but the first time he added confirmation that he is looking into action in Florida. Critics have long argued that the humanitarian crisis at the southern border and Biden’s lax immigration enforcement policies are grounds for impeachment.
Trump maintains a commanding lead for the Republican presidential nomination, which DeSantis supporters are counting on reversing starting with the governor’s ground operation delivering a surprise victory in the impending Iowa caucuses.
Fluctuating national polls currently have Trump narrowly leading a close race with Biden should the former president be nominated, although voters also say that likely convictions in left-wing venues will make them less likely to support him. It’s also speculated that Democrats may replace Biden with a younger Democrat such as Gavin Newsom or Dean Phillips, and it is not yet known which candidate would lose more votes to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential run.