(LifeSiteNews) — Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested incumbent U.S. President Joe Biden could be barred from the 2024 primary ballots of conservative states following the logic of the Colorado Supreme Court’s Tuesday night decision to disqualify Trump from the contest due to his alleged involvement in an “insurrection.”
As LifeSiteNews previously reported, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision that Trump is ineligible to run for president in 2024 due to his alleged involvement in an “insurrection” on January 6, 2021 and that his name should not appear on state ballots in the primaries. However, as Heritage Foundation election law expert Hans von Spakovsky has noted, “no federal court has convicted Trump of engaging in ‘insurrection or rebellion,’” and “the Senate acquitted Trump of that charge in his second impeachment.”
READ: Colorado Supreme Court declares Trump ineligible for presidency, state’s primary
Reacting to the shock ruling on Wednesday, DeSantis argued that the left is “abusing power” and said of the Colorado decision that “there was no trial on any of this. They basically just said ‘you can’t be on the ballot.’ I mean, how does that work? What’s the limiting principle for that?”
California’s lieutenant governor has already called on the secretary of state to consider following Colorado’s lead and disqualifying Trump from the Golden State’s primary ballot.
DeSantis suggested that conservatives could play the same game in a bid to damage Biden’s chances at re-election.
“Could we just say that Biden can’t be on the ballot because he let in eight million illegals into the country and violated the Constitution, which he has?” he said. “Could we just say, oh, they have money coming to Hunter [Biden]?”
The GOP-controlled U.S. House of Representatives this month approved an impeachment inquiry into Biden over allegations of corruption. Republicans have also accused Biden of overseeing an “invasion” at the southern border, which one Republican congressman recently suggested is an impeachable offense.
And DeSantis wasn’t alone in considering that the same means of political attack used by opponents of Trump could also be used by conservatives against Biden.
The Daily Wire noted that Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick similarly floated the notion, but the outlet also observed that neither politician “appeared to seriously consider removing Biden from the ballot.”
Speaking to Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Patrick said the Colorado decision has made him think that “maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing eight million people to cross the border since he’s been president, disrupting our state far more than anything anyone else has done in recent history.”
However, he seemed to dismiss the notion of taking such action to deprive voters of the ability to choose Biden, noting that “we believe in democracy in Texas.”
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The remarks concerning the Colorado decision came after DeSantis, Trump’s chief rival in the 2024 primary even while Nikki Haley is scrambling to a tie for second place, said he wouldn’t opt to remove his name from the Colorado state primary ballot if Trump’s name doesn’t also appear.
The Florida governor declined to make that commitment after fellow GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy on Tuesday night vowed to drop out of the Colorado primary if the state Supreme Court’s decision stands and urged the other candidates to follow his lead.
DeSantis rejected the suggestion when asked, stating that the move would just be “playing into [hands of] the left.” He added that he believes Colorado’s “political” decision will be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
As LifeSiteNews reported, Trump’s campaign immediately vowed to appeal the decision to the nation’s highest Court.
DeSantis said Wednesday the Colorado decision doesn’t impact his involvement in the 2024 race, and suggested that the attempts to kick Trump out of the running are a purposeful effort on the part of Democrats to waylay Republicans in a quagmire of legal snares.
“They’re doing this for a reason,” he said. “Do we want to have 2024 to be about ‘this trail, that case, this case,’ having to put hundreds of millions of dollars into legal stuff? Or do we want 2024 to be about your issues, about the country’s future with a nominee that’s going to be able to prosecute that case against the left?”
Trump currently leads DeSantis in the polls by over 50 points, and DeSantis is fighting with Haley for second place at 11.9% to 10.8%, respectively. A recent Wall Street Journal poll saw Trump leading Biden 47% to 43%.