He’s changed his stance on Ukraine without any explanation so now he appears to be confused and weak. TPM had this observation:
For big picture purposes, let me just make this clear off the bat: Ron DeSantis’ position on U.S. support for Ukraine is still unclear. But that is largely beside the point.
Over the course of the last week and a half, the Florida governor has been roundly criticized by fellow Republicans for an answer he gave in a Tucker Carlson questionnaire about his stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the U.S.’s support for Ukraine’s military. His response at the time was more telling about his 2024 campaign strategy than his actual beliefs about the war. In remarks to Carlson, DeSantis characterized Russia’s year-long deadly invasion of Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” and argued that supporting Ukraine’s defense was not necessarily in the U.S.’s best interest. Here’s the full quote:
“While the U.S. has many vital national interests—securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural and military power of the Chinese Communist Party—becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”
The remark confused some Republicans and supporters who have been following DeSantis’ positioning for longer than the past year. Back when DeSantis was a congressman from Florida, he was incensed by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and frequently attacked the Obama administration, claiming it wasn’t doing enough to punish Russia for the occupation.
But the rationale for the about-face earlier this month is fairly obvious. Carlson often uses his show to promote pro-Putin propaganda — a year ago a leaked memo revealed the Kremlin had been advising Russian state media to broadcast Carlson segments as often as possible — and has been highly critical of the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine.
So on one hand, DeSantis knew his audience and was likely hoping to appeal to Carlson’s viewership, which has been bathed in the Fox News host’s anti-Ukraine sentiment for over a year. But he’s also trying to make inroads with Trump supporters before he officially challenges the former president for the Republican nomination. When Carlson’s team asked Trump if “opposing Russia in Ukraine” was “a vital American national strategist interest,” Trump held to his isolationist stance: “No, but it is for Europe.”
Other far-right MAGA Republicans like Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO), J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Freedom Caucus members in the House have become increasingly critical of the U.S.’s military support for Ukraine, with some calling for it to end.
But Republican foreign policy hawks were quick to pounce on DeSantis for his position on Ukraine, and publicly lambasted the Florida Republican for it — John Cornyn said he was “disturbed” by DeSantis’ remarks, Marco Rubio suggested the governor wasn’t experienced enough in foreign policy to have an opinion, etc.
And it appears it’s all getting to DeSantis. During his interview with Piers Morgan this week, which will air in its entirety tomorrow, DeSantis cleaned up his remarks. He called Putin a “war criminal” who should be “held accountable” and admitted he could have been clearer about the whole “territorial dispute” thing.
The bigger point is that DeSantis, in caving to criticism, proved that he’s capable of being shamed — a massive vulnerability and character flaw in today’s MAGA Republican Party that Trump will surely feast upon.
Tucker will have a field day too. If he decides it’s profitable for him to get back on Trump’s good side. From the sound of his recent grovelling, he must think it is:
BO SNERDLEY (HOST): Tucker, listen, I’ve had a number of people saying they read all these things in the paper — “You hate Trump blah, blah, blah.” But this it — does Tucker like Trump’s policies, any policies of his? What’s the deal with you and Donald Trump?
TUCKER CARLSON (GUEST): Oh, let’s see. I spent four years defending his policies and I — I’m going to defend them again tonight. And actually, and I’m pretty straight forward, I’m — I love Trump. Like, as a person, I think Trump is funny and insightful. And and I said this to Trump when he called me, you know, all wounded about those texts. That was a moment in time where I was absolutely infuriated.
And I think this is in the text — and those were all grabbed completely illegitimately, in my opinion, in this court case, which I guess I’m not allowed to talk about, but I’m enraged that my private texts were pulled.
But those — those particular texts were pulled at exactly — at the moment where I was texting with one of my producers because some idiot on the Trump campaign had sent us the name of these dead voters who had voted. And we went and I repeated them on air, and it turns out some of them were alive.
SNERDLY: Oh.
CARLSON: So. I was just — I felt humiliated. Yeah. Like what? And I thought then and I think now that that election was not on the level, it was not a free and fair election. I thought that then. I think it now.