Trump told aides he would stay in White House after 2020 defeat, new book reveals
Former President Donald Trump repeatedly assured aides after he lost the 2020 presidential election that he would remain in the White House and not cede power to Joe Biden, a new book reveals.
“I’m just not going to leave,” Trump told one aide, according a forthcoming book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, CNN reported.
Trump, Haberman wrote, seemed to realize he had lost to Biden immediately after the election, but his mood later changed.
“We’re never leaving,” he told another aide. “How can you leave when you won an election?”
The book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” is being released on October 4.
The new revelation sheds more light on the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 election, which was marked by Trump’s refusal to cede power to Biden and his efforts to overturn the election results.
Trump began expressing his intention not to leave the White House in January 2021 as incoming President Biden was getting ready to take over.
“Why should I leave if they stole it from me?” he asked during a conversation with Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, CNN reported.
In line with his efforts to overturn the election, Trump had called on his supporters to march on the Capitol and disrupt the certification of Biden’s electoral victory, which led to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
Trump’s pledge that he would not depart the White House had no historical precedent, Haberman writes in her book, and his declaration left advisers wondering what he might do next.
The former president, however, did not make his intentions public. When asked by a reporter at the time whether he would be willing to leave the White House if Biden had won the electoral vote, Trump responded, “Certainly I will, and you know that.”
However, he was still insisting that the election had been “stolen” from him through massive fraud by Democrats.
The revelations from the book come as a House select committee and the Justice Department are investigating the Jan. 6 Capital attack and Trump’s role in inciting the “insurrection.”
Trump has indicated he is considering running for president in 2024.
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