On the day after his supporters ransacked the United States Capitol building, former President Donald Trump released a video announcing that he would be leaving the White House and that then-President-elect Joe Biden would be taking over.
However, outtakes released by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riots showed that Trump was reluctant to read from the script he had been given, and refused to say that the 2020 election was over even as he prepared to leave the White House.
And as newly released testimony flagged by Politico's Kyle Cheney shows, Trump's reluctance to concede he would be leaving extended beyond what the House Select Committee showed in its hearings.
Specifically, former Trump White House photographer Shealah Craighead told the committee that Trump would repeatedly deploy what she viewed as stalling tactics during the filming of the video.
"His agitation of stopping and starting the conversation was based on asking for Diet Cokes several times, or stopping to take a sip and then starting again, immediately stopping and taking another sip and then starting again, reading some of the scroll, and then asking for a new Coca-Cola, or needing a towel to wipe his head or something," she explained.
Craighead then told the committee that it seemed as though Trump wanted to do anything he could to not film the video.
"It was just there is anything — you know, as you procrastinate, you're finding anything to... not to do what you have to do," she explained. "Anything that he could procrastinate with before getting the words out he would do."
