Donald Trump tells supporters he ‘shouldn’t have left’ the White House

Former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania, over the weekend. Photo / Doug Mills, The New York Times

Donald Trump, who sought to overturn his loss of the 2020 election, also suggested that he didn’t mind if reporters were shot.

Former President Donald Trump told supporters Sunday (local time) that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House at the end of his term during an end-of-campaign rally where he vented angrily about a spate of new public polls showing him losing ground to Vice-President Kamala Harris and joked about reporters being shot at.

The former President also described Democrats as a “demonic” party at the rally, at an airport in Lititz, Pennsylvania, his first of three swing-state stops planned for his second to last day on the campaign trail. Trump’s voice was audibly hoarse and his speech sluggish as he made unfounded claims about election interference. He praised himself for ditching his prepared remarks, saying it meant the “truth” could come out.

“We had the best border, the safest border,” Trump said of his time in the White House. He said the economy had been in good shape, before mentioning the chart he had been pointing to featuring immigration statistics when he was shot at during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.

“It said we had the safest border in the history of our country the day that I left,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have left, I mean, honestly,” Trump continued. He added, “We did so well, we had such a great—” and then cut himself off. He then immediately noted “so now, every polling booth has hundreds of lawyers standing there”.

The remark echoed what Trump told some aides within days of his 2020 election loss: that he wasn’t going to leave the White House.

“I’m just not going to leave,” Trump told one aide. He told another, “We’re never leaving,” and added: “How can you leave when you won an election?”

Trump never conceded the race to Joe Biden. And his denials that he had lost that election were issued by himself and a ring of mostly outside advisers and lawyers, who pushed every avenue possible to overturn Biden’s victory. Those efforts culminated in an attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on January 6, 2021, as Biden’s electoral college victory was being certified.

Hundreds of people have been charged in connection with that attack. Trump has been indicted in Georgia and by a federal special counsel in connection with his efforts to stay in power.

Trump also complained about a series of recent polls. His campaign had sent out a memo suggesting a Des Moines Register poll of Iowa showing Trump losing the state by four points and a new batch of New York Times/Siena College polls of battleground states were incorrect.

Trump, however, took the complaints to a different level. He spent nearly 20 minutes trying to instil doubts about the election, reviving a host of baseless claims of widespread fraud that he made in 2020.

He claimed that voting machines would be hacked, that elections needed to be called by 11pm Tuesday night and that efforts to extend polling hours to allow more people to vote – something his own party has pushed for in Pennsylvania – were tantamount to fraud.

Trump, while riffing, also pointed to the protective glass encasing him now at outdoor rallies since he survived the assassination attempt in Butler. “To get to me, somebody would have to shoot through fake news, and I don’t mind that much, ‘cause, I don’t mind. I don’t mind,” he said, as some in the crowd laughed and howled.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Michael Gold and Maggie Haberman

Photographs by: Doug Mills

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