Washington (AFP) - Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis sought to reset his floundering US presidential bid Tuesday with his first major interview outside of conservative media, an effort largely overshadowed by the legal woes of Republican primary front-runner Donald Trump.
Minutes before DeSantis was due to sit down with CNN, Trump announced he was expecting to be indicted for a third time, this time as part of the federal probe into his role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
DeSantis, 44, had planned to make a splash with a fresh policy announcement on eradicating "wokeness" in the military, but ended up being asked straight out of the gate about the former president -- and having the rest of his interview pushed back to the second half of the hour as CNN's analysts took stock of the breaking news.
"I hope he doesn't get charged. I don't think it would be good for the country. But at the same time, I've got to focus on looking forward and that's what we're going to do," the governor said.
DeSantis has been criticized for not going in hard enough against Trump, whose polling lead against him has expanded from a bridgeable 13 points in January to a possibly insurmountable 33.5 points today.
He has struggled to present himself as an electable alternative to the former president, with analysts pointing to his awkwardness with the public on the campaign trail, his far right politics and missteps he has made on foreign policy.
DeSantis has so far granted interviews almost exclusively to right-wing outlets, drawing allegations that he is afraid to engage with journalists outside of the "safe space" of his conservative media ecosphere.
Ahead of his CNN appearance, pro-DeSantis political action committee Never Back Down stirred fresh controversy with a new ad using a computer-generated Trump voice.
"Some reboots were never going to be successful, like 'Dynasty,' 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,' or even 'MacGyver.' And now we can add Ron DeSantis's 2024 campaign to the list of failures," Trump aide Jason Miller hit back.
Trump, 77, has already been indicted twice and is facing more than 70 felony charges, including for financial fraud over hush money payments to a porn star and for refusing to surrender classified secrets he took upon leaving office.
Prosecutors in the southern state of Georgia are expected to decide next month whether to indict him over his bid to overturn the state's 2020 results.
