During his waning White House days, then-President Donald Trump once privately acknowledged his defeat in the 2020 election, according to a former aide.
In an apparent contradiction with his public grumblings about the 2020 election being rigged, he blurted out, “Can you believe I lost to this guy?” while viewing his rival President Joe Biden on TV, former White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah Griffin told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.
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“I’m not of the mind that this is going to take down Donald Trump in a legal sort of way,” Griffin said. “But I do think it’s going to inform the public about a man who lost and couldn’t do what we’ve done for the entirety of our history, which is allow a peaceful transition of power.”
The House select Jan. 6 committee has sought to prove Trump intentionally tried to overturn the election despite knowing he lost, host Dana Bash told a panel. Griffin then recounted the time Trump acknowledged his loss, but stressed it would be difficult to prove. She did not say exactly when Trump made the acknowledgment.
Griffin also pointed to a press conference Trump held shortly after the 2020 election about the COVID-19 pandemic in which he nearly slipped up and conceded that he might not remain in office.
“Ideally, we won’t go to a lockdown. I will not go — this administration will not be going to a lockdown,” he said during a November 2020 press conference, according to the Washington Post. “Hopefully the — whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration will be.”
Trump seems to be on the cusp of saying “the Biden administration,” but catches himself and says “time will tell” pic.twitter.com/6QaZV9TFOq
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 13, 2020
During his testimony for the Jan. 6 committee, former Attorney General William Barr testified that he told Trump his 2020 election claims were “bulls***.” The committee has held public hearings that included experts and fellow Republicans arguing that claims of rampant 2020 election malfeasance to deprive Trump of victory were false.
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In the weeks that followed the election, Trump publicly peddled claims that the election was “rigged” or that massive voter fraud deprived him of victory. Members of the Jan. 6 committee, such as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), decried these grumblings as the “Big Lie” and declared that his bid to “overturn the 2020 election” posed a threat to democracy.
Many allies in his inner circle concocted plans to challenge the election legally, notably by pressing members of Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the election results so the Trump team could fight the results in key battleground states.
