Former President Donald Trump knew that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden even before Jan. 6 when he whipped his crowd of supporters into a frenzy over his Big Lie of widespread voter fraud that didn't exist. He knew. And most of us knew that he was aware of his defeat.
Politico reports:
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told then-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson in the days before Jan. 6, 2021, that Donald Trump had privately acknowledged losing the 2020 election, according to a newly disclosed interview Hutchinson gave to the Jan. 6 select committee.
In the Sept. 14 interview — her fifth as a witness for the select committee — Hutchinson described frequent calls with McCarthy in the run-up to the attack on the Capitol and said that he told her he was afraid then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had not adequately prepared Trump to accept defeat.
"What's Mark thinking?" Hutchinson recalled McCarthy telling her about Meadows in a conversation that took place sometime between Jan. 2 and Jan. 5. "He's giving the president bad advice."Hutchinson said McCarthy had told her Trump would repeatedly acknowledge his loss in private but then almost immediately change his mind and say it was possible for him to remain in office. "I can only imagine that's coming from Mark," McCarthy said, per Hutchinson's testimony. The select panel's release of two Hutchinson interview transcripts from mid-September interviews came as it prepares to publish its final report in full, expected later Thursday.
"A lot of times he'll tell me that he lost, but he wants to keep fighting it, and he thinks that there might be enough to overturn the election," Meadows told Hutchinson about Trump.
Via CNN:
Hutchinson also testified that in late December 2020, Meadows lamented to her that Trump would get upset any time he mentioned the transition, telling the committee that Meadows said something to the effect of: "he's just so angry at me all the time I can't talk to him about anything post-White House without him getting mad that we didn't win."
"Later in the interview, Hutchinson told the committee she spoke with Meadows immediately after a call with Georgia officials on January 2, 2021, where Trump pushed officials to help overturn the election results there."
"He said something to the effect of, 'he knows it's over. He knows he lost. But we are going to keep trying. There's a chance he didn't lose. I want to pull this off for him,'" Hutchinson said, recounting what Meadows told her about Trump.
Trump's narcissistic brain will not allow him to admit defeat. He cannot do it. The one-term president is broken. He will burn this country to the ground rather than admit defeat. He knew he had lost, and still, he called on his mob of supporters to march to the Capitol. All because of one man's ego. What a disgrace.
