DeSantis Shifts Narrative After Receiving Backlash

Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

During a recent interview with Fox Nation’s “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin by calling him a “war criminal.” These remarks came only a few days after his earlier stance regarding the war in Ukraine led to a lot of controversies.

However, only last week, DeSantis had referred to the war between Ukraine and Russia as a “territorial dispute” and had claimed that supporting the war was not in the U.S.’s “vital national interest.”

Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham (SC), have opposed this stance, claiming that those who do not support Ukraine do not understand how big of a threat Russia is and what could happen if Ukraine lost the war.

In this new interview, DeSantis stated that Putin had “grand ambitions” but that he lacked the military capability necessary in order to be successful. He added that he had also been “hostile to the United States.” DeSantis claimed further that Putin was “basically a gas station with a bunch of nuclear weapons.”

Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the war crimes committed in the war regarding the deportation of Ukrainian children. Neither Russia nor the U.S. recognizes the ICC’s jurisdiction, which is why it is unlikely Putin will face any charges following this warrant.

A United Nations report last week also concluded that Russia has most likely committed both war crimes and crimes against humanity during the invasion of Ukraine.