In the days since Donald Trump was indicted, his allies have had a unified demand of his GOP primary rivals: promise to pardon the Donald — or else.
It’s not an accident: In the days leading up to his arraignment, the former president worked the phones to vent about the case to his allies and discuss the way forward. According to a person familiar with the matter and another source briefed on it, Trump had one repeated request for his supporters: go on TV and social media and trash Ron DeSantis for refusing to commit to pardoning Trump.
Trump’s demand advances two goals: The first is to protect himself from legal consequences if he loses both the GOP primary and his federal court case. But given that Trump is telling allies he’ll trounce DeSantis and all other primary challengers, the demand for a pardon pledge appears to be more a political move. The question itself offers a trap for any Republican who tries to engage with it: either side with Trump and use the occasion to keep him in the campaign spotlight or share some uncomfortable real estate on the side of Joe Biden and the Justice Department.
“If you’re Ron, you find yourself really in a really tough situation, because if you blast the DOJ and you blast Jack Smith and Biden, you’re essentially defending Trump and admitting Trump was right,” one MAGA-aligned Republican strategist tells Rolling Stone. “If you condemn him, there’s no lane for you running on that. And then silence is an equally bad option because folks notice you not saying anything.”
The DeSantis campaign did not respond to Rolling Stone’s questions about the governor’s position on a potential pardon.
Reached for comment, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung sent a lengthy statement accusing DeSantis of “hiding in a hole” during Trump’s Tuesday indictment and of running a campaign driven by consultants.
So far, DeSantis has tried to mix condemnation of the Justice Department with silence on the subject of a pardon. On the day news of the indictment broke, he blasted the Justice Department and pledged that a DeSantis administration would “bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias, and end weaponization once and for all.”
Special counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with 37 counts of retaining classified information and obstruction of justice in keeping at least 31 classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence and attempting to hide them from federal law enforcement. The indictment includes damning evidence, including the transcript of what appears to be a confession from Trump that he took war plans he could’ve declassified as president but didn’t.
That hasn’t stopped Trump’s allies from demanding he be pardoned. On Fox News, former George W. Bush spokesman turned Trumpist Ari Fleischer pressed the talking point, arguing that “Every wise Republican should make a pledge they would pardon Donald Trump.” Pro-Trump legal scholar Jonathan Turley also suggested Trump could “run on pardoning himself” and that “If any of these Republicans [running for president] were elected, they could pardon Trump.”
So far, however, Trump-friendly GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has been the loudest voice in the media pressing both DeSantis and the rest of the Republican field on legal absolution for the former president. On Tuesday, the former biotech and finance executive, who Trump has privately praised and joked about hiring in a second administration, held an impromptu press conference demanding every 2024 presidential candidate commit to pardoning Trump if elected.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Ramaswamy says he’s not focused on DeSantis and has broadly “called on candidates in both parties, regardless of our political interests, to either stand against what I see as a politicized prosecution and say so and commit to a pardon or else explain why.”
But he said he found DeSantis’s attempts to hedge on Trump’s legal fate distasteful.
“I don’t think it’s good when politicians try to hide, try to talk out of both sides of their mouth,” Ramaswamy said. “It’s possible he’ll come out adopting my position later. I think that’s a trend we’ve seen throughout this campaign. If the last six months are any indication, my prediction is he’ll come around to my position.”
The pardon issue also put other Republican candidates who have flirted with criticism of Trump in an awkward position as they try to navigate a middle course.
Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley initially hedged on the issue of Trump’s guilt. In a Fox News appearance, she said both that the Justice Department has “lost all credibility” but also that, if the event its allegations were true, Trump would have been “incredibly reckless with our national security.” In the days since, Haley has shifted further, saying that she would be “inclined in favor” of a pardon.
Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence tried to walk a similarly narrow path during an appearance on the conservative Clay Travis & Buck Sexton show. Pence said Trump faces “serious charges” and that he “can’t defend what’s been alleged” but wouldn’t allow himself to be pinned down on the subject of pardons. “I just think it’s premature to have any conversations about that right now,” Pence said.
But those kinds of answers aren’t sitting well with Republicans, as the response from Travis to Pence’s hedging showed: “If you know that these are political charges, and you do, this is not a difficult decision.”
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