Free Republic

NEW YORK -- 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 an interview with NBC News posted 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...

Trump gave an interview on Thursday to Hugh Hewitt, who repeatedly asked him to spill on what disparaging nicknames he plans to use against those who compete with him in the 2024 Republican primary. When Hewitt floated Glenn Youngkin (R) as a possible bid, Trump referred to the Virginia Governor as a “disappointment,” complaining that he didn’t get enough gratitude from Youngkin or his team even though “I did a lot for him. And he got elected because of me, just like Ron DeSantis. Even more so.” DeSantis is often considered Trump’s biggest potential primary threat, and the former president...

Former President Donald Trump made waves shortly after midnight Monday by criticizing the Club for Growth, deeming it a “globalist group” and asserting that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his donors are also globalists. “The Club For No Growth is a GLOBALIST group that I have been taking to the cleaners for years,” Trump wrote in a TruthSocial update, explaining that he worked with the group for a period of time but adding it “couldn’t get away from China, Europe, Asia, and part’s unknown.” “They know I won’t play that game, I am America First all the way. That’s...

Advisers to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are actively preparing for a possible presidential run, according to two Republicans with knowledge of the conversations who described meetings and preliminary staffing moves — the latest indication that DeSantis is laying a foundation for a national campaign. DeSantis’s political team has already identified multiple potential hires in early primary states such as New Hampshire and Iowa, according to one of the Republicans, who said experienced operatives have expressed interest. This Republican also said that Phil Cox and Generra Peck — two key members of DeSantis’s 2022 reelection team — are involved in ongoing...