Ron DeSantis Thinks Biden Admin Hurt His White House Ambitions

The Biden administration caused one of the biggest blows to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' 2024 bid, according to the governor himself.

DeSantis told the Christian Broadcasting Network Thursday that the one thing he wishes he could have changed about running for the GOP presidential nomination is the indictments against former President Donald Trump.

DeSantis said that the decision from Biden's Justice Department to lay charges against Trump in two criminal cases "distorted the primary," giving his Republican rival a boost while taking away attention from other matters in the contest.

Ahead of his widely anticipated campaign launch, DeSantis was hyped to be the most likely Republican to beat out Trump in the primaries. Having become a household name for his handling of the COVID pandemic and fresh off a landslide re-election victory, DeSantis was poised to be a strong candidate when he announced his candidacy in May. But the buzz around the governor fell quickly as he suffered a series of setbacks and struggled to catch up to Trump in the polls. Now, even former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is catching up to DeSantis in several key battleground states.

Asked if he had any regrets about running for president, DeSantis told CBN, "I would say if I could have one thing change, I wish Trump hadn't been indicted on any of this stuff."

Trump has been indicted four times this year. He was first indicted by the Manhattan district attorney in March 2023 on state charges related to the hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels. He was then indicted by a federal grand jury in June 2023 over his alleged mishandling of classified records, followed by another federal indictment in August for alleged election interference. Later that month, he was also indicted, alongside 18 co-defendants, by an Atlanta-based grand jury over efforts to overturn the results of Georgia's 2020 election. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in all four cases.

DeSantis noted he's been critical of the indictments against Trump, which he said "distorted justice," but added that those developments also "distorted the primary." He said part of it is because those charges helped Trump's 2024 campaign, but that the indictments "also just crowded out, I think so much other stuff and it's sucked out a lot of oxygen."

Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign via email for comment.

Trump has also been notably absent from the past four Republican presidential debates, choosing to hold his own counter programming during the time slots. That decision has pulled eyes off the debate stage where DeSantis has appeared every time.

On Thursday, DeSantis said he thinks the indictments have distorted the primary race, but that in the general election, "the Democrats have had a plan on this, I think the media has a plan on this, and I think if it gets to the point where six months from now, Trump's the presumptive nominee and he's having to go through all this, they have a plan for how they're going to ride this out."

Trump has repeatedly criticized DeSantis' campaign, ripping into both his staff and poll nubmbers. Most recently he responded to several personnel departures from the governor's campaign by writing on Truth Social, "The Ron DeSanctimonious 'team' of misfits and grifters has largely quit his campaign to go on to greener pastures."

"It has been a terrible experience for them as they have watched their candidate fall violently from the sky like a wounded bird," Trump said.

After the top strategist for DeSantis' PAC Never Back Down, Jeff Roe, announced his resignation, Trump also declared it was "GAME OVER for DeSanctimonious."