Trump probe knocks DeSantis off course — and to the back of the news

CNN was about to air Jake Tapper’s interview with Ron DeSantis when bigger news got in the way.

“In just a moment, my interview with Florida governor Ron DeSantis,” the anchor said on Tuesday. “But first, the other major news today involving Donald Trump,” he said, cutting to a live report on developments in Trump’s expected indictment.

It was a televised manifestation of the entire 2024 Republican primary: Trump, seemingly bolstered by each indictment he faces, barreling through the crowded field while his rivals struggle for attention.

DeSantis did get his chance during the late-afternoon show to pitch himself to a newer audience: The second-place GOP candidate has almost exclusively appeared on conservative media outlets since entering the race eight weeks ago. But as he grapples with lagging poll numbers, a staff overhaul and concern from the donor class — despite a hefty early fundraising haul — DeSantis is seeking to shake up his media strategy. On Tuesday, that meant appearing for about 15 minutes on CNN.

It was not entirely a futile effort. DeSantis boasted of his electability and warned of the “woke mind virus,” favorite talking points of the Florida governor. But he was forced to spend precious airtime answering questions about news that Trump may get indicted again over his role in the aftermath of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden.

“Since Trump came on the scene in 2015, he’s had an incredible ability to make every conversation about him,” Jason Cabel Roe, a GOP consultant who worked on Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, said after the Tapper interview. “Everything gets lost in the noise. At the end of the day, all anyone’s talking about is him.”

Roe said DeSantis’ best strategy is to jump into the mix regardless.

“If Trump is going to be the conversation, [DeSantis] might as well join the conversation rather than being a spectator,” said Roe, who is unaffiliated in this race. “If no one hears what you say unless you’re engaging in the Trump debate, might as well engage in the Trump debate.”

On CNN, DeSantis stopped short of condemning the former president — after saying earlier on Tuesday that Trump “should have come out more forcefully” against the siege on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“This country is going down the road of criminalizing political differences, and I think that is wrong,” DeSantis replied when Tapper asked him about Trump’s announcement that he had received a “target letter” from special counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 investigators. “I don’t think it serves us good to have a presidential election focused on what happened four years ago in January. So I want to focus on looking forward. I don’t want to look back. I hope he doesn’t get charged. I don’t think it’ll be good for the country.”

DeSantis also defended himself against concerns about electability amid his recently flagging fundraising efforts. His campaign drew $20 million in the second quarter of the year, setting aside $3 million of those funds for the general election — and only about 15 percent of donations came from small donors. On top of that, the campaign spent over $1 million on staffers in the second quarter. DeSantis’ camp shed staff in the past week, discharging several aides involved in event planning for the campaign.

But while DeSantis’ appearance on CNN marks a new step for the governor, his interview with Tapper did not betray any major shifts in campaign strategy or messaging. DeSantis, who has pitched himself as a more conservative and more viable alternative to the former president, voiced familiar talking points.

“Not everyone really even knows what wokeness is,” DeSantis said, when asked about a sweeping plan he announced earlier Tuesday to return the military to its “core mission.” “I mean, I’ve defined it, but a lot of people who rail against wokeness can’t even define it.”

The candidate also defended his plans to “rip the woke out of the military” by banning transgender people from serving and ridding the institution of measures around diversity, equity and inclusion to improve recruitment. He also stressed that he would be a “pro-life president” if elected, but would not say whether he would support enacting a national six-week ban on abortion.

“A lot of people view me as a threat,” DeSantis said, disputing the narrative that he’s on the decline. “I think the left views me as a threat because they think I will beat Biden and deliver on all of this stuff, and of course people who have their allegiances on the Republican side have gone after me. But the reality is, this is a state-by-state process.”