Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Monday defended his remarks urging Republican voters not to be \u201clistless vessels\u201d that automatically support former President Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n
Mr. DeSantis said in an interview with The Florida Standard, a conservative news outlet, last week that the conservative movement \u201ccan\u2019t be about the personality of one individual.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re not rooted in principle, if all we are is listless vessels that\u2019s just supposed to follow whatever happens to come down the pike on Truth Social every morning, that\u2019s not going to be a durable movement,\u201d Mr. DeSantis added.<\/p>\n
The comments quickly prompted backlash over the weekend from Mr. Trump\u2019s campaign and supporters, who said the comments insulted his voters. Many likened Mr. DeSantis\u2019s remarks to Hillary Clinton\u2019s 2016 comments that half of Mr. Trump\u2019s supporters fit into a \u201cbasket of deplorables.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokeswoman for MAGA Inc., Mr. Trump\u2019s super PAC, Karoline Leavitt, said on Saturday in a statement posted online that \u201cDeSantis must immediately apologize for his disgraceful insult.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about the remarks during an appearance on Fox News on Monday afternoon, Mr. DeSantis said he was referring to members of Congress who had called him a \u201cRINO,\u201d or \u201cRepublican in Name Only.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people in Congress that I was referring to, that have attacked me and tried to say somehow that I was a RINO, they\u2019re putting entertainment and personality over principle,\u201d he said. \u201cOur voters want us to stand on principle and fight for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. DeSantis, who remains in a distant second place to Mr. Trump, has in recent weeks faced a series of campaign woes that included significant campaign staff cuts, stagnant polls and a leaked debate strategy memo. He has received frequent criticism from Mr. Trump and will most likely be the target of further attacks by others at the Republican National Committee debate Wednesday as the leading candidate onstage in Mr. Trump\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooks like Ron DeSanctimonious just had his \u2018Basket of Deplorables\u2019 moment. Not good!\u201d Jason Miller, an adviser to the Trump campaign, said Saturday on X, formerly known as Twitter.<\/p>\n
Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who has been critical of Mr. Trump but has defended him more frequently in recent months, told Fox News that Mr. DeSantis\u2019s comments occurred \u201cwhile his numbers were tanking\u201d and helped explain why other candidates, such as the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, were \u201con the rise.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know why anyone running for president would put down half of the electorate and identify them, call them listless vessels, because they support the former president,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Others in the presidential race seized the opportunity to criticize Mr. DeSantis as well. Mr. Ramaswamy wrote on Sunday that \u201cthe real danger to our movement is the rise of \u2018listless-vessel\u2019 robot politicians who blindly follow the commands of their Super PACs,\u201d an apparent reference to the Never Back Down super PAC that has effectively taken over Mr. DeSantis\u2019s campaign. The New York Times reported last week about a trove of documents that a political consulting firm associated with the super PAC had posted online. The documents described key details about how Mr. DeSantis might approach the debate, including suggested language for attacking Mr. Ramaswamy.<\/p>\n
Bryan Griffin, a DeSantis spokesman, pushed back and said Saturday that Mr. DeSantis\u2019s remarks were aimed at Mr. Trump and his \u201ccongressional endorsers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dishonest media refuses to report the facts \u2014 Donald Trump and some congressional endorsers are \u2018listless vessels.\u2019 Why? Because Trump and D.C. insiders feel he is entitled to your vote,\u201d Mr. Griffin wrote on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why Ron DeSantis will be showing up on Wednesday night to debate, and Donald Trump will not,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Mr. DeSantis said in his Monday interview on Fox News that he had intended to emphasize what he saw as \u201cone of the big problems with our party for many, many years,\u201d which is that people \u201csay they\u2019re going to do certain things and then don\u2019t end up following through.\u201d<\/p>\n
He called for a focus, instead, on \u201cdelivering for the people that have put us into office.\u201d<\/p>\n