Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday accused Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) of “pretending like he’s governing in the state of Florida, while actually … running a presidential campaign.” He called on DeSantis to stop “the charade.”
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign accused DeSantis of “preparing for a month-long, taxpayer-funded presidential campaign schedule paid for by Florida taxpayers” in an emailed press release on Wednesday. Soon after Trump’s team blasted DeSantis, the 37-year-old anti-woke entrepreneur released a video taking aim at the governor.
He highlighted Trump’s attack on DeSantis but noted that the “legalities” of DeSantis’s situation are not his focus. Rather, he shared his view that the alleged “shadow campaign” signifies DeSantis’s ties to the Republican political establishment:
What I get to the heart of is who do we actually want as our next president. And I’m now more convinced than ever that it cannot be a career politician, a professional politician that is beholden to the donor class, that tires to pull the strings and make the best laid plans to actually do the right thing politically without just having the courage to do what’s actually right as a leader and as a human being.
And, to me, I got to be honest, I find it irritating that Ron DeSantis will play this charade, play this game of hiring someone to run his super PAC but without declaring for president, so that you can then coordinate with the super PAC, which you can’t do after you actually run for president. It’s just an example of another plastic politician, whose beholden to his donor masters, that’s running around the country pretending like he’s governing in the state of Florida while actually, we all know it, is running a presidential campaign.
Weeks ago, the pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. filed an ethics complaint in Florida, accusing DeSantis of “ “illegal conduct” and running a “shadow presidential campaign,” as Breitbart News reported. The complaint read in part:
Certain activities related to Governor DeSantis’s ascension to the national stage, insofar as they are funded by a vast network of political committees, non-profit organizations, and prominent political operatives, are unlawful because they serve his personal political objectives, are in furtherance of his personal financial gain at the expense of Florida taxpayers, and are intended to influence his official decision to resign from office.
The DeSantis administration dubbed the allegations a “politically motivated” attack at the time.
Ramaswamy also claimed to have a “dirty little secret” that one of his senior campaign staffers was “being courted to work on Ron DeSantis’s what would be campaign” before joining Ramaswamy’s team “but could only be hired in July.”
“Why the artifice?” he asked.
The entrepreneur added that whoever is elected will be “the person the citizens of this country entrust with sitting across the table from Xi Jinping with a spine of steel and actually representing American interests without fear.”
“And to me … it’s unbecoming of someone who’s running for that position to play this game of artifice,” he continued. “If you want to run for president, then run for president, and let’s get on with it. But let’s let go of the charade.”
A spokesperson for DeSantis did not return Breitbart News’s press inquiry offering the governor an opportunity to respond to Ramaswamay’s comments.