DeSantis says ‘of course’ Trump’s ‘lost’ 2020 election

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis doubled down on his criticism of GOP 2024 frontrunner Donald Trump over the former president’s claims the 2020 election was “stolen”, saying flatly that “he lost” and “Joe Biden’s the president.”

“Yes or no: Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?” NBC News correspondent Dasha Burns asked in a clip from an exclusive interview that aired Sunday.

“Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on Jan. 20 every four years is the winner,” replied DeSantis, 44, before reiterating his issues with the way the last presidential election was run.

“But respectfully, you did not clearly answer that question,” Burns pressed. “And if you can’t give a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on whether or not he lost —”

“No, of course he lost,” the Florida governor said. “Joe Biden’s the president.”

On Friday, DeSantis had called Trump’s theories of widespread voter fraud “unsubstantiated” and mocked the 77-year-old’s outlandish claims of voting machines being hacked in key states to change the outcome.

The Florida governor also pointed Burns to election administration grants made by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the proliferation of vote-by-mail, third-party collection of mail-in ballots and the suppression of The Post’s bombshell report on first son Hunter Biden’s involvement of his father in his foreign business deals.

“I think what people in the media and elsewhere, they want to act like somehow this was just like the perfect election,” DeSantis said. “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.”

Trump was partially responsible for that outcome, the governor added, because $400 million in pandemic-era stimulus went to states to run elections — and because of former White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci.

“Why did we have all those mail votes? Because of Trump turned the government over to Fauci,” he said. “They embraced lockdowns. They did the CARES Act, which funded mail-in ballots across the country.”

Florida is one of several states that permitted voters to cast mail-in-ballots before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump pleaded not guilty Aug. 3 to a four-count indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith that alleged the former president tried to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power and made “knowingly false” claims about the results of the 2020 election that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

When asked about DeSantis’ comments on the 2020 election, the Trump campaign lashed out at the Florida governor.

“Ron DeSantis should really stop being Joe Biden’s biggest cheerleader,” spokesman Steven Cheung told The Post in a statement.

The Florida governor emphasized to NBC that the indictment was “not really about Donald Trump” and accused officials in the US justice system of having “weaponized” the rule of law for electoral advantages.

He has made similar remarks about an earlier indictment Smith brought against the former president, which alleged Trump improperly kept classified national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and then lied to federal authorities who requested them back.

But both indictments, DeSantis told Burns, are a distraction from the failures of Joe Biden’s presidency — and will lead to Republican losses in 2024.

“If the election is a referendum on Joe Biden’s policies and the failures that we’ve seen and we are presenting a positive vision for the future, we will win the presidency and we will have a chance to turn the country around,” he said.

“If, on the other hand, the election is not about Jan. 20, 2025, but Jan. 6, 2021, or what document was left by the toilet at Mar-a-Lago, if it’s a referendum on that, we are going to lose.”

DeSantis has escalated his attacks against the former president as his poll numbers have lagged, despite his second-place standing in the Republican primary.

Trump is leading the field of GOP presidential hopefuls with 53.7% support nationwide, compared with 15.7% who support DeSantis, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average.

DeSantis also pushed back against criticism of new history curriculum in Florida that Vice President Kamala Harris and even some Republican candidates have claimed wrongly teaches there were benefits to slavery.

“What slavery was really about was separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives. It was just devastating,” 2024 GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said in July when asked about the Florida curriculum. “So I would hope that every person in our country — and certainly running for president — would appreciate that.”

“Don’t take that side of Kamala Harris against the state of Florida. Don’t indulge those lies,” DeSantis responded when asked about Scott’s attacks.

Some “developed skills in spite of slavery, not because of slavery,” DeSantis told Burns when asked about the curriculum. “It was them showing resourcefulness and then using those skills once slavery ended.”

“We’ve been involved in education, not indoctrination,” he said. “Those standards were not political at all. The Legislature didn’t dictate any of that. The governor’s office didn’t dictate anything of that.”

Dr. William Allen, a member of the working group that created the curriculum and a former chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights, has also hit back at the vice president and others for making false claims about the lessons.