Former President Donald Trump, who attended a town hall meeting hosted by CNN on Wednesday evening, refused to concede defeat in the 2020 election and said he would forgive many of his supporters who were found guilty of participating in the election. attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
After CNN host Caitlan Collins asked Trump if he would admit losing to Joe Biden in 2020, the former president launched into a tirade, repeating false claims that the election had been rigged.
“It was a terrible election,” Trump said, drawing applause from an audience gathered at St. Anselm’s College in New Hampshire, a state that could prove decisive in his 2024 presidential bid.
Trump declined to criticize the Capitol storming, in which his supporters tried to prevent Congress from ratifying the election results, and reaffirmed his intention to pardon those involved in the attack if voters sent him back to the White House in 2024.
“I intend to pardon many of them. I can’t speak for all because some have probably lost control of themselves,” Trump said.
As Reuters notes, Trump and Collins began to interrupt each other when the presenter began to challenge a number of the former president’s false claims about the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 attack, which followed a speech Trump gave outside the White House that day.
According to the former president, his supporters came to the White House that day “with love in their hearts. It was amazing and it was a beautiful day.”
The audience, made up of Republicans and independents who plan to vote in the Republican primary, generally backed Trump, giving him a standing ovation as he took the stage.
Collins attempted to verify Trump’s claims in real time, which sometimes caused them to pause.
Trump also commented strongly on the jury verdict that found him guilty on Wednesday of sexually harassing journalist Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and damaging her reputation.
Responding to a question about Russian aggression against Ukraine, Trump said that by becoming president again he would be able to stop this war, in which thousands and thousands of Ukrainians and Russians continue to die, within 24 hours. Trump also reiterated his assertion that if he were in power in the White House, Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have dared to launch such a full-scale invasion of a neighboring sovereign country.
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