Republican presidential candidate and current Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis got into a verbal sparring match with a reporter during an interview that was aired on Monday after he was asked if former President Donald Trump lost the election in 2020. Dasha Burns, reporter for NBC News, asked the Republican candidate, “Yes or no, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election.”
“Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on January 20th every four years is the winner,” DeSantis replied, according to the Daily Wire, which was not the answer Burns wanted to hear. Because, as we all know, this is nothing more than a “gotcha” question. If he answers in the affirmative, then Trump’s base turns on him hard. If he says no, the more moderate Republicans turn on him and he gives the Democratic Party plenty of ammunition with which to call him a radical and identify him with the crowed who rioted at the Capitol building. No matter what he says, he loses.
The video then cuts and shows Burns saying, “Ok, but respectfully, you did not clearly answer that question and if you can’t give a yes or no on whether Trump lost then how…”
“No, of course he lost,” DeSantis responded. “Joe Biden’s the president.”
Which is, of course, absolutely true. Trump lost to Biden. Was it fair and square? That’s a totally different question with a very different answer.
“But the issue is, I think what people in the media and elsewhere, they want to act like somehow this was just like the perfect election,” he added. There’s another cut and the interview picks up with DeSantis stating, “So, I don’t think 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 and you shouldn’t have provided all the money to fund the mail-in ballots.”
NBC News then provided a statement revealing bits of the interview would end up airing throughout the day.
Exclusive: Florida Gov. DeSantis rejects former President Trump's claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.
"Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on Jan. 20 every four years is the winner," DeSantis said in a @NBCNews interview. https://t.co/Sv8j1Xtuyi pic.twitter.com/Eo3cvYHnYt
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 7, 2023
This isn’t the first time that DeSantis has been asked to provide his thoughts concerning the 2020 presidential election. During a campaign event held in Iowa last week, he was asked about the race.
“It was not an election that was conducted the way I think that we want to, but that’s different than saying Maduro stole votes or something like that,” he replied. “Those theories, you know, proved to be unsubstantiated.”
Later, the Florida Republican seemingly indicated that he would likely pardon Trump if he were to be the nominee and face off against President Joe Biden in the general election.
“I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the country to have a former president that’s almost 80 years old go to prison,” he went on to say during an interview. “And just like Ford pardoned Nixon, sometimes you’ve got to put this stuff behind you, and we need to start focusing on things having to do with the country’s future. This election needs to be about Jan. 20, 2025, not Jan. 6, 2021.”
The media really wants to paint every conservative candidate for president as some kind of radical right-wing extremist if they don’t think the 2020 election was completely above board. Hopefully, this will backfire on them.
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