Psaki: DeSantis ‘Is Trying Right Now to Appease the Trump Base … and It Isn’t Exactly Working’

EXCERPT:

PSAKI: "Well, he certainly needs a path of his own, right, Joe? He is trying right now to appease the Trump base. He’s been trying that for months. It isn’t exactly working. So what you’re proposing there, what Donny Deutsch proposed this morning, what others have called for, even though they're not listening, is the other path, which is, can he reach the sane Republicans out there who may have conservative policy viewpoints, who may have conservative views, but don’t want all of the crazy, which is somebody who’s going to pardon insurrectionists, somebody who has suggested they could pardon Trump? Is there a lane for the non-crazy? Then there can be a debate about policy issues. I think the Biden team would be happy to have that with DeSantis about some of his positions on issues like abortion and concealed carry. But that’s not the path that DeSantis has chosen. The other thing that's interesting on the politics, to me, of this is that there’s been a lot of projection since November from many Republicans and others who want an alternative to Trump on the magic of Ron DeSantis, right? Time and time again, there's a wait for the magic. We have not seen the magic yet. So, yes, he needs a different message, but does he have that magical charisma quality that you need to be president? We have not seen evidence of that at this stage, which is different than being the governor of the state."