"Of course he lost": Florida Gov. DeSantis acknowledges Trump’s defeat in 2020 elections

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis publicly acknowledged that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 elections, making it his most definite answer on the subject to date.

"Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on Jan. 20 every four years is the winner," the GOP presidential candidate said during an interview with NBC Nightly News that aired on Monday, after avoiding making definitive statements on the subject for years. 

While discussing the 2020 presidential election in the program, DeSantis was pressed for an answer on whether he thought Trump had lost the elections. 

"If you can't give a 'yes' or 'no' on whether or not Trump lost..." NBC News correspondent Dasha Burns told DeSantis.

"No, of course he lost," DeSantis said. "Joe Biden's the president." 

According to a CNN conducted last month and a CBS News/YouGov poll from May, around 70% of the Republican voters said they thought that Biden’s victory in the 2020 elections was not legitimate. 

On August 3, Trump pleaded not guilty to four federal counts, including conspiracy charges and obstructing the certification of the electoral vote in an alleged scheme to overturn the election. 

Trump spokesperson Steve Cheung responded to DeSantis’ comments by saying that the governor “should really stop being Joe Biden’s biggest cheerleader.”

During the interview, however, DeSantis said that he still saw problems with how the 2020 elections were handled. He criticized Trump for funding mail-in ballots and private donations to election administrators by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, among others. 

“I don’t think it was a good-run election,” Mr. DeSantis said. “But I also think Republicans didn’t fight back. You’ve got to fight back when that is happening.”

Last month, DeSantis said in an interview with CBS News that voters are the ones who should decide whether Trump should be disqualified from returning to the White House given his recent legal problems. 

"At the end of the day, voters make that decision," DeSantis said. "Some people ask me like, 'Well if somebody's indicted, should they be able to run?' The problem is we've seen political indictments. I mean, I think Bragg was political," the Florida governor said in reference to charges filed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

"You have these other — these people. So, that would just give any prosecutor the ability to render someone ineligible. So, I've not said that. But I also think, just at the end of the day, the election's got to be about the future."