Maggie Haberman Roasts Ron DeSantis ‘Mild’ Trump Criticism Getting ‘Jumped On By His Own Campaign’
Maggie Haberman roasted the bizarre feud in which Ron DeSantis made a mild criticism of ex-President Donald Trump, and his campaign distanced him from the remark after Trump’s campaign amplified it.
After Trump announced Tuesday that he’s about to be indicted in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s conduct surrounding the 2020 election, Republicans tried hard to thread a needle between opposing the charges and still trying to compete with Trump.
The Trump campaign attacked DeSantis for conceding that Trump should have done more to stop the violence on Jan. 6, while the DeSantis campaign hit back bitterly about the “context” of the remark, distancing DeSantis from the thing he said.
On Wednesday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, co-anchors Abby Phillip and Phil Mattingly asked Haberman to weigh in on the GOP’s reaction to the news, and Haberman singled out the DeSantis-Trump feud — which Mattingly went on to zing as “Inception-level” and “perplexing”:
PHILLIP: Are we being naive to wonder when Republicans, either on Capitol Hill or on the campaign trail, will start saying something different about these charges as they pile up against former President Trump?
MAGGIE HABERMAN: Well, I don’t know, Abby, how many indictments this is going to be tested through, but we’re now on the potential third one and there could be a fourth before the end of the summer, assuming that this one does go to a third. And we have not seen any difference in what we are hearing from Republicans. There are very small number of Trump’s rivals in the presidential primary who are willing to very openly call him out.
Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, you have Ron DeSantis tying himself in knots around this. And you really saw a great example of it yesterday where the mildest criticism that he issued of Trump in saying Trump could have done more and should have done more on January 6th, and what he appeared to be referring to was to try to stop the violence that was taking place at the Capitol, was then jumped on by his own campaign who criticized people amplifying it, criticized Trump’s advisers who were amplifying it, saying his words are being taken out of context.
So, I think it reflects, Abby, the dynamics in the Republican primary, which is that a number of Republican voters don’t want to hear criticism of Trump, do want to hear Republicans defend him, do want to echo what Trump has basically instructed these Republicans to say. And unless folks are willing to take him on directly, and we will see what happens on a debate stage next month, depending on whether Trump shows up and depending on who makes that debate stage, but we will see what happens in terms of whether people are willing to directly take this on and say more forcefully if they disagree with these indictments. Right now, it’s very hard to see what the dynamic is that changes things, and that only benefits Trump.
MATTINGLY: The Twitter back and forth between the DeSantis team and Trump’s folks, quoting, there’s like inception level. Slightly perplexing yesterday to some degree.
Watch above via CNN This Morning.
