Donald Trump was apparently so convinced of his false claims and conspiracies about the 2020 election that he considered the possibility of refusing to leave the building when his presidency ended, according to stunning new reporting by a New York Times reporter.
The Times’s Maggie Haberman revealed the factoid to CNN’s New Day, as part of a promotional tour for her upcoming book Confidence Man, her most expansive look yet at Donald Trump and the end of his term in office.
The former president insisted during an inteview in the fall of 2020 that he would indeed leave the White House if the Electoral College voted in December to ratify his election defeat. That vote was then set to be accepted by Congress in a largely ceremonial vote days later, on January 6.
But according to Haberman, the president told White House aides that he had no plans to actually leave the building.
“I’m just not going to leave,” Mr Trump reportedly told one.
And to another, he allegedly said: “We’re never leaving ... How can you leave when you won an election?”
Obviously, the decision of Mr Trump to simply remain in the White House would not have been the end of that particular debate. Joe Biden would still have been sworn in by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, at which point if Mr Trump refused to leave the White House he would have been escorted off the property (or even arrested) by Secret Service agents just as any other private citizen would be treated.
But Mr Trump apparently did not make that calculation, and according to Haberman even floated the idea to Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel.
Ironically, it has now been reported that Ms McDaniel’s relative, Utah Senator Mitt Romney, was one of the people who personally pushed Joe Biden to enter the 2020 presidential race and defeat Mr Trump specifically.
Mr Trump eventually left the White House without incident on the last day of his presidency but not before encouraging a riotous mob of his supporters to swarm the US Capitol. The resulting attack left several US Capitol Police officers dead, dozens of other law enforcement officers injured, and members of Congress fleeing for their lives.
