Republican Governor Ron DeSantis finally admitted that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
“Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on Jan. 20 every four years is the winner,” a slippery DeSantis first told NBC News, before finally admitting that Donald Trump lost the election when pushed by Dasha Burns during an NBC News exclusive interview.
DeSantis managed what many others in his party cannot “Of course, he (Trump) lost…. Joe Biden is the president.”
Watch:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Q: But respectfully, you did not clearly answer that question, and if you can't give a yes or no on whether or not Trump lost, then how —
DeSantis: Of course, he lost. pic.twitter.com/K3etjSXady
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) August 7, 2023
Q: Yes or no, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?
DeSantis: Whoever puts their hand on the bible on January 20th every four years is the winner.
Q: But respectfully, you did not clearly answer that question, and if you can’t give a yes or no on whether or not Trump lost, then how —
DeSantis: Of course, he lost.
Q: Trump lost the 2020 election.
DeSantis: Of course. Joe Biden is the president. But the issue is I think what people in media and elsewhere they want to act like this was just the perfect election.
Naturally, DeSantis had to be brought there struggling and that didn’t stop DeSantis from peddling conspiracy theories about 2020, including bringing up Hunter Biden’s laptop and moving the goal post: “I think what people in the media and elsewhere, they want to act like somehow this was just like the perfect election.”
No one has claimed it was a perfect election. However, most of the deliberate fraud found was on behalf of Republicans by Republicans.
No evidence of outcome-determinative fraud was ever produced, and Trump lost all of the claims of fraud. ALL of them.
Trump’s people even stole voting machines and still did not manage to find fraud. In Michigan, a Trump attorney and former Republican Michigan state Rep. Daire Rendon were arraigned in connection with a case involving accessing and tampering with voting machines and now another Trump lawyer has been charged with accessing and tampering with voting machines related to the 2020 election.
Lambert, DePerno, and Rendon were named by Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office last year as having “orchestrated a coordinated plan to gain access to voting tabulators.”
Also, it wasn’t just Michigan. “Michigan is one of at least three states where prosecutors say people breached election systems while embracing and spreading Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen,” ABC pointed out.
A pause while we ponder why Republicans never mention this fact. If several Biden attorneys and a former state Representative orchestrated a plot to steal voting machines and allies took those machines into hotels without the authority to do so, we would never hear the end of it.
Are Republicans entitled to break the law and violate the rights of other Americans to vote and have it counted? No.
So yes, the election was not “perfect,” but most of the issues involved Trump allies and supporters intimidating election workers, stealing voting machines, and illegally interfering with the election in a variety of other ways.
“I don’t think it was a good-run election,” DeSantis said. “But I also think Republicans didn’t fight back. You’ve got to fight back when that is happening.”
Donald Trump and others filed and lost at least 63 lawsuits around the country. He fought back, even without a shred of legitimate evidence, Donald Trump fought back.
While every candidate has a right to “fight back,” it should be based on legitimate questions and concerns supported by some suggestion of evidence. The 2020 election offered no such suggestion to Donald Trump et al.
The sleight of hand of saying “Joe Biden is the president” without admitting that he won 80 million plus votes is the typical Republican response when pushed because it plays to their conspiracy theory believers to let them think that Joe Biden took the presidency from Trump.
But Ron DeSantis did finally admit that Trump lost.
Sadly, this passes for Big News because the current Republican Party is pretending Donald Trump’s own election expert didn’t say 2020 was the most secure election in history. As Republicans, including lawmakers, try to establish the right for their party to unilaterally decided to erase tens of millions of voters’ rights to have their votes counted when they lose an election even as clearly as Trump lost 2020, the in-the-dust runner-up to the defendant front-runner gets praise for admitting the truth.
Donald Trump put himself above this country, above the rule of law, and above the peaceful transfer of power upon which every small d democracy depends. He did so out of self-interest, avarice, greed, contempt, and a madly delusional ego.
Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. There is no confusion about this fact. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying and possibly fleecing their supporters.
Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Connect with Sarah on Post, Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.
