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Donald Trump refused to concede his 2020 electoral loss in his first interview on CNN since 2016, maintaining a stance that Republicans say risks their efforts to retake the White House.
The former president and current frontrunner for the GOP nomination repeated false stolen election claims several times during the televised town hall in New Hampshire on Wednesday.
“That was a rigged election and it was a shame we had to go through it,” Trump said. The town hall moderator, Kaitlan Collins, repeatedly pointed out that his claims of fraud were false.
Trump also defended his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when asked if he regretted his actions on that day. Trump said the people who came to hear him deliver a speech near the Capitol — some of whom would then storm the Capitol and disrupt the transfer of power from Trump to Biden — were “there with love in their heart.”
“I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can’t say for every single one,” Trump said in response to a question from an audience member.
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“It was a beautiful day,” said Trump, who went on to suggest former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bore blame for the riot.
Trump said that it was the responsibility of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser to stop the deadly riot on January 6, 2021. Pelosi’s office has said she shared control of the Capitol with the Senate majority leader, but it was Trump’s duty to act.
Trump also said he would pardon a “large portion” of his supporters who waged a deadly January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol to overturn his electoral loss. The town hall came just a day after a New York jury concluded that Trump was liable for sexually abusing and then defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll, drawing criticism from some Republicans and leading others to renew questions about his electability. The news from the Carroll verdict did not dampen Trump’s enthusiasm for the town hall, with advisers saying he was excited and raring to go.
He repeatedly insisted Wednesday night that he never knew Carroll, accusing her of lying and mocking her account that he attacked her in the 1990s in a dressing room of the department store Bergdorf Goodman.
The former president, who did not testify at the trial, used the CNN town hall setting to try to debunk Carroll’s story point by point — drawing laughter and applause from some in the audience of Republican and independent voters.
