Ron DeSantis has been under pressure by allies of Trump since Saturday to comment on the his potential looming arrest. He has been silent until now, perhaps caving into pressure. Jason Miller is one of Trump’s top advisors:

The official Trump War Room twitter page also took note, saying “It has been over 24 hours and some people are still quiet. History will judge their silence.” Donald Trump Jr. came out swinging too saying, “Pay attention to which Republicans spoke out against this corrupt BS immediately and who sat on their hands and waited to see which way the wind was blowing.”

Mike Pence, in contrast, called the arrest politically motivated.

But this morning the Florida governor finally weighed in. His response spotlights the way he will thread the needle of getting some of the MAGA base, while still throwing punches at Trump.

He opened with a line to cheapen the former President and cast him in a ridiculous, irresponsible light. He drew laughter from the crowd at a press conference for a separate issue when he said, “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. I just, I just can’t speak to that.”

The statement outlines DeSantis’s planned line of attacks. It won’t be about politics or policy, but about personality.

He goes on to largely defend the former President on the details of the matter.

“But what I can speak to, is that if you have a prosecutor, who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction, and he chooses to go back many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush money payments, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda.”

Note the fascinating parsing of words here. He said the pornstar thing twice in the matter of twelve seconds, while being allied with Trump on his prosecution, he’s having a fun time reminding voters of something they might find morally repugnant.

The statement is subtle from the former Governor, but expect it to outline his whole campaign. If the attacks will just be on personality, will Trump demolish DeSantis like he did with the other former Florida governor, Jeb Bush? We’ll keep you posted.

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