Trump lost the US 2020 election, DeSantis says after years of hedging
- Ron DeSantis has rejected Republican rival Donald Trump’s voter fraud claims
- Trump was criminally charged last week with trying to overturn the 2020 election
Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said definitively that rival Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, an acknowledgement the Florida governor made after years of equivocating answers.
“Of course he lost,” DeSantis said in an interview with NBC News posted on Monday. “Joe Biden’s the president.”
DeSantis has often sidestepped questions about whether he believes the 2020 election results were legitimate. But in recent days he has started publicly questioning the lies that Trump and his allies have made about the election’s legitimacy.
Federal and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general said there was no credible evidence the election’s outcome was affected by fraud.
The former president’s allegations were also roundly rejected by courts at the time, including judges he appointed.
Last week, Trump was charged by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith with four felonies related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.