‘Of course he lost’- DeSantis on Trump’s 2020 claims
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00:00 This morning, Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is giving
00:04 his most direct comments yet against Donald Trump's claims that the 2020 election was stolen
00:08 from him. DeSantis saying, quote, "Of course Trump lost in 2020 and that Joe Biden is the
00:13 president." DeSantis is shifting his strategy after previously dodging questions about the
00:17 validity of the 2020 election. CNN's Steve Contorno is following this for us. So, Steve,
00:23 what else has DeSantis been saying?
00:27 Omar, I have been covering Governor DeSantis going back to that 2020 election and I have
00:32 never heard him say in such forceful terms that Trump lost the election. And he's been
00:38 ducking and dodging this question for the better part of almost three years. But in an interview
00:43 with NBC, he was asked point blank about the 2020 election and this is what he said.
00:54 Yes or no, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?
00:58 Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on January 20th every four years is the winner.
01:03 OK, but respectfully, you did not clearly answer that question. And if you can't give
01:09 a yes or no on whether or not Trump lost, then how can you...
01:12 Of course, no, of course he lost.
01:14 Trump lost the 2020 election.
01:16 Of course, Joe Biden is the president.
01:22 Joe Biden is the president. That's the first time that he has so directly said that Trump
01:27 lost and Joe Biden is the president. And it's not just that he has avoided this question.
01:32 He has taken steps over the last two or three years to really embrace the more
01:37 baratorial elements of his party. And immediately after the election,
01:42 he was one of the first to suggest that state election results could be overturned.
01:48 He has put allies of those who believe that the election was stolen in his administration.
01:54 And he has had his staff have meetings with conspirators and overhauled Florida's voting
02:00 laws in many ways to appease these people who think that the election was stolen.
02:06 So, yes, he's finally gotten to this point where he can say
02:10 Trump lost, but it's been a long journey to get here. And it's coming at a point
02:14 where clearly he is trying to change the nature of this race a little bit and start making headway
02:19 into Donald Trump's lead, which looks like it's still strongly in his favor going into these
02:25 early nominating states.
02:26 Well, Steve, for someone who's covered Governor DeSantis as long as you have to this point,
02:31 if it's perked up your ears, then I know we're operating in the right space.
02:34 Steve Contorno, thank you so much. Kate.
02:37 Let's talk more about this. Joining us now is White House Bureau Chief for The Washington Post,
02:40 Toluse Olorunnipa.
02:42 Toluse, what's your take on this? I mean, Ron DeSantis saying reality is reality,
02:48 that Donald Trump lost, but as Contorno is pointing it, saying it more forcefully
02:53 than he has in the past, what does this do for Ron DeSantis in this moment?
02:57 Well, Kate, this is the reset happening in the DeSantis campaign. We'll have to wait
03:05 and wait a few weeks to see whether or not it moves any of the numbers, but he's clearly
03:09 changing his strategy after more than two years of embracing the big lie, embracing the idea that
03:14 the election was stolen, or sort of paddling around the issue without actually talking about
03:20 it. It's a clear distinction now in his new stage of this campaign where he's trying to take Trump
03:25 on in a more direct way, and also taking on some of his voters. This is not supposed to be a thing
03:30 of courage to say what is true, but because Trump's voters are so aligned with the idea that
03:36 the election was stolen, DeSantis is actually potentially putting himself on the opposite
03:40 side of them. And so he's going to have to be somewhat deft in trying to figure out how to
03:44 say yes, Trump lost, but also say that there are issues with the election because that's what a lot
03:48 of Trump voters believe. And so that's what he's trying to do. That's what he tried to do in this
03:51 interview. It's not yet clear whether or not he's been able to shift any of the numbers with this
03:55 new stage of his campaign, but it's very clear that he's trying a new tactic. Even the fact that
03:59 he was having an interview with NBC News is a clear signal that he's opening himself up to the
04:04 mainstream media and being willing to try something different because what we've seen over the first
04:07 couple of months of his campaign is what he was trying before was not working. Yeah, I mean,
04:12 and I want to play something else that DeSantis said in this interview with NBC about the election.
04:17 Listen to this, Toluse. If the election is a referendum on Joe Biden's policies and the
04:24 failures that we've seen, and we are presenting a positive vision for the future, we will win the
04:30 presidency and we will have a chance to turn the country around. If, on the other hand, the election
04:35 is not about January 20th, 2025, but January 6th, 2021, or what document was left by the toilet at
04:43 Mar-a-Lago, if it's a referendum on that, we are going to lose. I thought this was interesting. I
04:50 mean, he does seem to be leaning into the toilet at Mar-a-Lago comparison quite a bit here. But
04:56 where does that—is it an—I mean, it's an unanswerable question. Is this enough?
05:02 Where does that leave him and his campaign right now?
05:04 It's a classic strategy to say, you know, this is an election about the future and not the past,
05:12 when you're running against someone who's been president before. It's not clear that that's
05:15 going to work in this case, because Trump's voters are so connected to him. They're so
05:19 aligned with him. They're so loyal to Trump and the Trump movement that just saying,
05:24 you know, all of these past grievances do not help people going forward. It's not clear if
05:28 that will work in a primary. Now, that may be something that will help win back some of the
05:32 moderates and independents who have already signed off from the Trump movement. But winning a
05:37 primary is a different strategy, and it's not clear that DeSantis has that strategy just yet.
05:41 But it's clear that he's going to take Trump on in a more direct way. That's something a number
05:45 of people have been calling for, because the idea of just sort of being on the same stage with Trump
05:50 and being in the same playing field with him and not really taking opposing positions, that wasn't
05:55 working. We've seen Trump's numbers go up as he's faced these various indictments, and we've seen
05:59 DeSantis' number go down. And so for that reason, I think he's trying a new strategy, and he wants
06:04 to see whether or not it will give him some traction here in the summer before the election
06:08 really gets underway. And you mentioned more moderate voters, because on the path forward
06:12 for DeSantis, Reuters has some interesting reporting now that one of his, one of Ron DeSantis' biggest
06:18 donors, hotel entrepreneur Robert Bigelow, is threatening to pull support or not give any more
06:24 support if DeSantis doesn't start, one, attracting more big dollar donors, and also if he doesn't
06:30 start moving more moderate. This is what he told Reuters. He does need to shift to get moderates.
06:36 He'll lose if he doesn't. Extremism isn't going to get you elected, Bigelow said in an interview,
06:41 adding that he had communicated these concerns to DeSantis' campaign. I wonder how big of a
06:45 problem this is for DeSantis, because as you're mentioning, you've got to thread the needle here.
06:49 You've got to win a primary, which as we know, as history tells us, especially recent history,
06:54 you have to go more to the extremes to win the primary, and then you can run in the general.
06:58 But I don't know. What does a more moderate move for Ron DeSantis look like now?
07:02 It's very difficult. Most of the people who want an alternative to Donald Trump and the
07:10 Republican Party are the moderate voters. They're not the extremer, extreme voters,
07:15 the people who had been with Trump from 2015 and 2016 and just sort of soured on him because he'd
07:20 been losing. I think DeSantis believed that because Trump lost in 2020 and saw losses in 2022 as well,
07:27 that a lot of the people who were with him were going to look for an alternative and say,
07:31 even if you're more like Trump, but you can show that you've won, then I will leave Trump for you.
07:35 We haven't seen that from a lot of the base Trump voters. And so now a number of DeSantis'
07:40 donors are saying, you need to appeal to some of these moderate voters and people that we need to
07:44 win back into the party, because if you just appeal to the right wing of our party, we're
07:49 going to find ourselves in a situation that's similar to what we faced in 2020, where we have
07:53 a high turnout, we have strong vote among the base, but we can't win over the college-educated
07:59 voters and the moderate voters. And for that reason, Joe Biden won his first term, and a number
08:03 of people are saying that he will win a second term if Republicans aren't able to win back some
08:08 of those voters that decided that they were done with Trump after 2020, and especially after the
08:13 January 6th insurrection. Yeah, I mean, if it's not connecting, you got to make a shift, a reset,
08:18 as we keep talking about with DeSantis. Let's see if it sticks. It's good to see you, Toluse.