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Days after he claimed he had “every right” to interfere with the 2020 presidential election results, Donald Trump admits that he “lost by a whisker.”
During a 45-minute interview with popular podcaster Lex Fridman, the former president revived his false claims that the election “was a fraud” but conceded that he did in fact lose.
Trump’s false and inflated claims about elections, which span more than a decade, have fuelled his 2024 ambitions; spurious legal challenges to results; and legislation and Republican-led rule changes that have tried to do what he failed to in court.
His interview on Fridman’s podcast is his latest in a string of unconfrontational appearances on shows hosted by popular YouTubers, right-wing influencers and streamers who appeal to young men and boys.
Trump recently appeared on streams hosted by Logan Paul, the Nelk Boys and Adin Ross — who gifted Trump a Rolex and a Tesla Cybertruck wrapped in a photograph of his assassination attempt — as well as comedian Theo Von.
Fridman, whose interview with the Republican presidential nominee was released on Tuesday, received a long-winded response when he asked Trump how he will handle his upcoming debate against Kamala Harris.
“So I’ve done a lot of debating, only as a politician. I never debated. My first debate was the Rosie O’Donnell debate, right? The famous Rosie O’Donnell Debate. The answer,” Trump said.
He was apparently referring to the August 2015 presidential primary debate, when moderator Megyn Kelly teed up a question to Trump saying “you called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.” (Trump cut her off and said “only Rosie O’Donnell.”)
“But I’ve done well with debates,” Trump told Fridman. “I became president, and then the second time I got millions more votes than I got the first time. I was told if I got 63 million … you would win. You can’t not win. And I got millions of more votes than that and lost by a whisker but— and look at what happened with the world.”
He ended his meandering answer by predicting a third World War.
Minutes later, when Fridman asked Trump for his message to independent voters who are “troubled” by his false claims of widespread fraud and the “false elector scheme” that sought to reverse the outcome in states he lost to Joe Biden, Trump responded with even more false claims.
“I think the fraud was on the other side,” Trump said. “I think the election was a fraud, and many people felt it was that, and they wanted answers. And when you can’t challenge an election, you have to be able to challenge it, otherwise it’s going to get worse, not better.”
Trump promoted the exclusive use of paper ballots, mandatory voter ID laws, and same-day voting with proof of citizenship, falsely alleging that millions of immigrants who are ineligible to vote are casting ballots.
“They just came in and they’re loading up the payrolls,” Trump said. “They’re loading up everything.”
He accused immigrants of “taking seats of people who are citizens of our country.”
