Trump comes out swinging and refuses to say he lost to Biden

Donald Trump came out swinging under aggressive questioning for CNN‘s Kaitlan Collins‘ by refusing to say he lost the 2020 election and defending his supporters’ actions on January 6th.

He later said he would only accept the 2024 results if they are ‘honest’ after railing against the ‘rigged’ 2020 election. 

In the first 30 minutes of the town hall, he former president blamed Nancy Pelosi for not securing the Capitol on the day of the riot and even pulled out notes of old tweets he posted that day.

The crowd at New Hampshire’s St. Anselm College – made up of Republican primary voters and independent voters – cheered and applauded Trump’s signature moves, which included name calling, taking out props, and dashing off quips at Collins.

Trump doubled down on his false claim he won the 2020 presidential election over Joe Biden. 

‘I think that when you look at that result and when you look at what happened during that election, unless you’re a very stupid person, you see what a lot of the people in this audience and probably maybe a couple that don’t, but most people understand what happened. That was a rigged election,’ Trump said.

He made that claim several times during the event.

‘The election was not rigged, Mr. President. You cannot keep saying that all night long,’ Collins told him. 

Collins pressed him hard on the issue. ‘It’s been nearly 2 1/2 years. Can you saw that you did lose the 2020 election?’

Trump refused to back down, saying there was evidence of ballot stuffing and people voting mulitple times. There has never been proof given of this and multiple recounts and lawsuits confirmed Biden’s victory. 

A voter in the audience asked Trump if he would drop the election fraud claims. 

‘Yes, unless I see election fraud,’ he said. 

‘Let’s just win it again and straighten out our country,’ he added as the audience applauded.

He also slammed Biden’s handling of the situation on the Southern border. Trump’s Title 42 – which allowed officials to turn back migrants due to the COVID pandemic – expires on Thursday. There is expected to be a rush of migrants crossing the border.

‘Look at what’s happening at our southern border,’ Trump said. ‘Millions of people are coming in. They’re being released from prisons. They’re being released from mental institutions, and we have millions of people pouring into our country, and now they’re getting rid of Title 42, which I put on, which kept people out.’

Trump also defended his actions on January 6th, when he spoke to supporters on the National Mall that morning. 

‘They were there with love in their heart. That was an unbelievable and it was a beautiful day,’ he said of his rally. ‘And what I was asked to do — I wasn’t involved in it very much. I was asked to come in and would I make a speech. I made a speech and I said walk peacefully and patriotically.’

He then blamed the insurrection on Pelosi, who was speaker at the time. 

‘Nancy Pelosi — crazy Nancy as I affectionately call her. Crazy Nancy and the mayor of Washington D.C. were in charge of capitol security,’ he said. The speaker is not in charge os security of the Capitol.

As Collins pressed him on his actions that day Trump reached into his suit jacket’s innner pocket and pulled out a sheave of papers to cite his old tweets. 

‘Let me pull it out. I have to pull it out,’ he said of the notes. The audience applauded and cheered.

‘So if you look at on January 5th – the day before – I said please support our capitol police and law enforcement, they are truly are on the side of our country, stay peaceful. Stay peaceful. This was the day before, and this was in the form of Twitter,’ he said.

He then noted a video – that he made late in the day hours after the insurrection started – asking his supporters to go home. And he got in a hit at Biden.

‘If you remember I made a video right outside the Oval Office in the rose garden, and I’m very proud of that video. I didn’t have a script. I don’t need a script unlike a certain person in there right,’ he said getting in a hit at Biden.

Trump is the leading contender for the GOP presidential nomination – and a poll this weekend showed him beating President Joe Biden in the general election.

Trump has long had a fraught relationship with CNN, which he derided as ‘fake news’ as president, even though former exec Jeff Zucker helped give him his start on ‘the Apprentice.’

Now, he is being questioned Collins, who his staff tried to bump from her seat in the White House briefing room amid tense relations between Trump and the press generally.

The then-president also – at one point – banned Collins from one of his appearances in the White House Rose Garden in 2018 when he got upset with her shouted questions in the Oval Office earlier in the day.

In 2019, he mocked the journalist when she pressed him on the US-Mexico border wall. 

‘You ran your campaign promising supporters that Mexico is going to pay for the wall,’ Collins began before Trump interrupted her. ‘Oh here we go again,’ he said.

‘And that wall was going to be made of concrete,’ Collins continued. ‘You just said earlier that the wall could be made of steel and right now our government is shut down over a demand from your administration that the American taxpayer pay for the wall. So how can you say that you are not failing on that promise to your supporters?’

‘A very nice question so beautifully asked, even though I just answered it,’ Trump replied.

‘I just told you that we just made a trade deal. We will take in billions and billions of dollars, far more than the cost of the wall, he said.

Wednesday’s town hall meeting marks Trump’s first appearance for a CNN interview since before he was elected president in 2016. 

And former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, who voted for Trump’s second impeachment when she was in the House and sat on a committee looking into his actions during the January 6th insurrection, launched a television ad against him on Tuesday,

Tha ad, airing on CNN before and after the Trump town hall meeting, warning viewers that the former president ‘is a risk America can never take again.’

Cheney narrates the 60-second ad but does not appear in it. It is funded by her political action committee.

Trump’s appearance comes the day after a New York jury found him liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5 million in damages. Jurors rejected Carroll’s claim she was raped, but found Trump liable for sexual abuse and for defaming Carroll after she made her allegations public. 

He’s also facing other investigations. 

Trump, last month in New York, pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records tied to an alleged hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

He also faces an investigation in Georgia, where the Fulton County district attorney plans to announce charges this summer from the investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the Peach State. 

Trump is under two investigations from the Justice Department: one tied to his actions trying overturn the 2020 election and one tied to the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.