Ron DeSantis claims Donald Trump could’ve ‘leaned in harder’ during Jan. 6 Capitol riot

More than two and a half years after the Capitol Riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Gov. Ron DeSantis is now saying Donald Trump didn’t do enough to stop it.

“I think it’s been well documented, kind of, his conduct when it first started how he sat there. He could have obviously leaned in harder, I think. I mean, even his own kids were texting saying, you know, he needs to do more, he needs to do more,” DeSantis told Megyn Kelly.

DeSantis’ latest position continues a series of shifting stances on the matter that have continued into the present.

During a July interview with Russell Brand, DeSantis rejected the idea that the siege of the Capitol to block the certification of President Joe Biden’s election was an “insurrection,” and said that those protesters were not “seditionists,” but hapless folks who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“It was not an insurrection. These are people that were there to attend a rally and then they were there to protest,” DeSantis said.

He noted things went badly despite the benign intent of attendees, but blamed the media for framing the issue badly.

“It devolved into a riot. But the idea that this was a plan to somehow overthrow the government of the United States is not true. And it’s something that the media had spun up just to try to basically, you know, get as much mileage out of it and use it for partisan and for political aims,” DeSantis said, adding that “a lot of people that were there who were just there and they didn’t have any designs on doing anything.”

DeSantis admonished Trump for standing by as chaos happened on January 6, 2021, as supporters tried to stop certification of the 2020 Presidential Election.

“I think it was shown how he was in the White House and didn’t do anything while things were going on. He should have come out more forcefully,” the Governor said during a press conference in West Columbia, South Carolina.

DeSantis’ change of tone about the events of that fateful day has been weeks in the making.

During a town hall in New Hampshire last month, DeSantis dodged an audience question about Trump’s role.

“So I wasn’t anywhere near Washington that day. I have nothing to do with what happened that day,” DeSantis responded, refusing to directly engage the question.

In February, DeSantis likened protests at the Florida Capitol to the Jan. 6 riot.

“It’s interesting that if they’re doing that from the Left, then the media says that’s ‘democracy in action.’ They don’t say it’s an insurrection if you take over a Capitol because of that, but I think that’s what it’s getting to.”

The Governor commented on Jan. 6 last spring, when he said concern about the riots that delayed congressional certification of the 2020 Presidential Election was a “dead horse” and a “loser” with voters.

On the anniversary of the incident, he offered similar dismissals of the focus of media and Democrats, diminishing the riot.

“This is their Christmas,” he said of the media and Democrats at a January 2022 news conference. He expanded on that take in a subsequent fundraising email, contending “Jan. 6th is like Christmas for the out-of-touch D.C., New York political and media class.”