Florida governor Ron DeSantis affirmed on Sunday that he believes Donald Trump lost the 2020 election despite the former president's false claims of election fraud, but suggested that Trump contributed to his own loss by signing a Covid economic bill that helped make mail-in ballots more popular.
“Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on January 20 every four years is the winner,” DeSantis told NBC News in an interview published on Monday.
Pressed to say 'yes' or 'no' on whether Trump lost, DeSantis replied: “No, of course he lost. Joe Biden's the president.”
But DeSantis said while the media and others “want to act like somehow this was just like the perfect election” that he does not believe it was a “good-run election.”
“But I also think Republicans didn't fight back. You've got to fight back when that is happening,” he said.
Among the issues DeSantis cited: the widespread use of mail-in ballots and ballot harvesting, as well as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s grants for election administration and social-media censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
DeSantis suggested Trump’s support for the $2.2 trillion CARES Act helped contribute to his own loss, as $400 million of the funds was allocated to help states with election administration. Many states chose to make mail voting more widely accessible during the pandemic.
“But here's the issue that I think is important for Republican voters to think about: Why did we have all those mail votes? Because of Trump turned the government over to Fauci,” said DeSantis, who is now running for president against Trump. “They embraced lockdowns. They did the CARES Act, which funded mail-in ballots across the country.”
DeSantis’s comments come days after Trump pleaded not guilty to four federal charges related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
He has been charged with four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
"Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false," the indictment reads.
DeSantis told NBC the former president’s legal issues are “not really about Trump” and suggested the legal system is “not fair if it is weaponized.”
“If the election is a referendum on Joe Biden's policies and the failures that we've seen and we are presenting a positive vision for the future, we will win the presidency and we will have a chance to turn the country around,” the Florida governor said.
“If, on the other hand, the election is not about Jan. 20, 2025, but Jan. 6, 2021, or what document was left by the toilet at Mar-a-Lago, if it's a referendum on that, we are going to lose,” he added.
Call me crazy, but I am pretty sure Donald Trump fought back on the election mighty fierce.
ReplyDeleteSo did a many thousands of people in Washington, DC.