Pro-Trump PAC Spars with DeSantis over Puerto Rican Statehood
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A pro-Donald Trump super PAC and Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign are both spinning the facts about support for Puerto Rican statehood.
A TV ad from the super PAC claims that when DeSantis, now Florida’s governor, was a U.S. congressman, he “sided with the liberals” and sponsored a bill “to make Puerto Rico a state,” a move it said would result in adding two Democrats to the Senate.
In 2018, DeSantis was one of 22 Republicans who — along with 15 Democrats — originally co-sponsored H.R. 6246, the Puerto Rico Admission Act of 2018.
The DeSantis campaign says the bill “didn’t grant or take a position on Puerto Rican statehood” but merely “clarified the process by which statehood would be granted to ensure it was subject to the will of the American people and a full congressional vote.”
But that soft-pedals the intent of the bill. The bill title states that it seeks “to enable the admission of the territory of Puerto Rico into the Union as a State.” After a transition process, the bill envisioned “final admission into the Union as a State no later than January 1, 2021.”
DeSantis’ campaign also argues that Trump once staked a similar position. When he was running for president in January 2016, Trump released saying that Puerto Rico’s residents “should be
