DeSantis slams Colorado Supreme Court decision to kick Trump off primary ballot

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis responded to Tuesday’s Colorado Supreme Court decision to exclude former President Donald Trump from the Republican presidential primary ballot.

In a social media post that came shortly after the controversial ruling, DeSantis, who is running against Trump, did not mention the former president by name and called for the Supreme Court of the United States to weigh in.

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“The Left invokes ‘democracy’ to justify its use of power, even if it means abusing judicial power to remove a candidate from the ballot based on spurious legal grounds,” DeSantis wrote on X. “SCOTUS should reverse.”

DeSantis wrote his comments in a quote of a post by Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who decried the ruling as “lawless thuggery masquerading as jurisprudence.” Lee’s post was accompanied by a GIF of dancing bananas.

Republican presidential candidates Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley and Chris Christie also criticized the ruling, with Ramaswamy vowing to withdraw from the Colorado race until Trump’s name is returned.

Haley, who appears to have replaced DeSantis as “second place” in the race, said judges deciding who can appear on the ballot is “the last thing we want.”

“I will beat him fair and square. We don’t need to have judges making these decisions,” Haley told NBC News. “We need voters to make these decisions.”

Christie, an ardent critic of the former president, also opposed the ruling, but declined to comment on the opinion specifically because he had not read it yet.

“I do not believe Donald Trump should be prevented from being president of the United States by any court,” Christie said at a town hall event, according to NBC News. “I think he should be prevented from being president of the United States by the voters of this country.”

Trump is expected to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States, which would automatically pause his disqualification.

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