Donald Trump appeared on a local conservative radio show Monday, one day before Minnesota's presidential primary. (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Former President Donald Trump appeared on a Minnesota conservative talk radio station on Monday and suggested he won the state four years ago, before moments later seeming to acknowledge he lost in 2020.

“I thought we won it last time, I’ll be honest, and I think we did win it. It’s very interesting, bad things happened with Minnesota,” Trump said on KNSI’s “Hot Talk with the Ox” program Monday, on the eve of Minnesota’s presidential primary election.

Trump came within 1.5 percentage points of winning Minnesota in 2016 and made multiple trips to the state in 2020 to try to turn it red, but he lost the race to President Joe Biden by more than 7 percentage points. The former president has falsely claimed there was widespread fraud in the last presidential election, but he hadn’t commented specifically on Minnesota’s results until Monday.

“Donald Trump’s lies about losing Minnesota underscore the unprecedented threat that he poses to our democracy,” DFL Party Chair Ken Martin said of Trump’s comments. “These are the same lies that he pushed when he sent his supporters to attack the Capitol on January 6, and they are just as dangerous today.”

But Trump went on to say that “we didn’t quite make it” in Minnesota, noting that he’s working with House Majority Whip and Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer to put together a plan to flip Minnesota this fall. No Republican presidential candidate has won the state since 1972.

“I thought we had it. I did so much for the state, especially up north, what we did, the level of love was so incredible,” Trump said. “We didn’t quite make it, and I think there’s a lot of things that we have to look at.”

Emmer, who was briefly a candidate to be House Speaker this fall, saw his bid dashed after Trump called him a “globalist RINO,” for “Republican in name only.”

“Tom Emmer I believe is a really good guy, I’ve felt that for a long time. He’s going to be very much involved in the campaign,” Trump said. “We’re going to see if we can put something together and win it.”

Trump hasn’t campaigned in Minnesota before Tuesday’s primary election. The radio appearance was his first time talking to media in the state since he lost the 2020 election. He said he doesn’t think of Minnesota as “that blue” of a state and he’s going to put resources into winning it this fall if he’s the nominee.

“We’re going to give it a shot, we’re going to give it a big shot,” he said. “The world has changed a lot in the last couple of years with what’s happening with the migrants and what’s happening with inflation.”