Ron DeSantis sidesteps question if Trump is a 'threat to our democracy' twice on 'Morning Joe'

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Florida Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis appeared on the January 11 episode of 'Morning Joe' to talk about his campaign with co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

While he criticized the former President and the current GOP front-runner Donald Trump during the conversation, he shirked away from calling his opponent a "threat" to the democracy of the United States, even when twice prompted by Brzezinski.

Ron DeSantis' first response

As Brzezinski directly asked the Governor if he felt Trump was a threat to democracy, Scarborough further pointed out that Trump's lawyers argued that "he could use SEAL Team 6 to execute, say, someone like you (DeSantis), one of his political opponents."

"Well, this idea of Presidential immunity has not ever been really vetted by the Supreme Court," began DeSantis, side-stepping the primary question.

"But, I think that admission by the lawyer, that statement, I think that lost him the case in the DC Circuit. So I think the DC Circuit is definitely going to rule against him," he noted.

"Then the question is, does the Supreme Court take that case," he continued, mentioning that he pointed out at the Republican Debate the previous night in Iowa that "going down this road where we are going with the legal issues, the trials, and the January 6 being the center of the election, we're giving the Democrats a huge advantage because those are the terms that the Democrats would love to fight the election on."

"It's not going to be good for Donald Trump, and then you may be in a situation where the fate of the Republican party is determined by a jury…in Washington DC. Is that really the direction we want to go with all this stuff? So we have a choice to make…" he added.

Mika Brzezinski reminds DeSantis of allegations against Trump

Referring to the reports of stolen documents, foreign funding, and the January 6 insurrection, the co-host once again repeated her initial question to DeSantis, which the latter deftly avoided for the second time.

"Here's what I'll say," he started a second time. "I think a lot of the rhetoric of Donald Trump… to me a lot of that is bluster. I mean, when he actually was in power, he had the opportunity to use valid constitutional authority to take the actions that conservatives wanted."

Mentioning Trump's claims of sending the military to crack down on crimes in the intercity, DeSantis stated that the former President could have sent in the National Guard during the "riot" over BLM, "but he chose not to do it."

"So I think some of it is rhetoric versus the actual reality, of being a strong versus a weak president. I wish he would have leaned in more on some of these issues that he promised to do and didn't."