Trump’s former president had planned ahead, regardless of the outcome, to claim he had won 2020 presidential election. He did this by discounting millions more votes that were cast through the mail or early, as a newly found recording from his staunch ally Steve Bannon illustrates.
Bannon was speaking with a group of associates on October 31, 2020 days before the election. He stated that Trump would declare him the winner, even though absentee mail in ballots would be counted well into evening and throughout the day. a recording obtained by Mother Jones shows.
Trump was aware, Bannon contended, that he’d face difficult odds of winning the election, but that early numbers would indicate he was in the lead after polls closed, due to most states counting absentee ballots last.
“What Trump’s gonna do, is just declare victory,” Bannon says on the recording.”He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s a winner.”
“At 10 or 11 o’clock Trump’s gonna walk in the Oval, tweet out, ‘I’m the winner. Game over. Suck on that,’” Bannon added.
Mother Jones has NEW information about Steve Bannon
Leaked audio shows the former White House strategist detailing Trump’s plan to declare election victory, even if he was losing. Listen: pic.twitter.com/ARr3M4qAjH— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) July 12, 2022
Trump said that any ballots not counted after his declaration were untrue.
“When you wake up Wednesday morning, it’s going to be a firestorm,” Bannon said.
Indeed, Trump did declare victory in the early morning hours after Election Night, insinuating that changes in the ballot totals, shifting toward then-Democratic candidate for president Joe Biden, were proof that something deceptive was occuring, despite there being no evidence to back Trump’s claim.
“This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country,” Trump said on Wednesday morning that week.
In a tweet, at close to 1 a.m. November 4, Trump also claimed, without proof:
We are up big, but they are trying STEAL the Election. We won’t allow them to do it. After the Polls close, no votes can be cast.
There is no evidence that any votes that were not included in the final totals were cast after the polls closed.
Trump had been laying the groundwork to make such audacious claims of fraud about mail-in voting for several months prior to Election Day, sowing doubt in his supporters’ minds about the safety and accuracy of the practice, which has been in use for several decades. As a result, most of his backers voted in person, while most of President Joe Biden’s supporters utilized absentee ballots to vote, due to concerns relating to the coronavirus pandemic at the time.
Notably, the fall primary was held that year. Trump used an absentee ballot for his vote, he voted early, in person, in the general election– two practices he criticized in his claims of fraud before and after Election Day.
Many rightly predicted that Trump’s claims of fraud leading up to the election indicated that he was going to claim mail-in ballots were fraudulent, in order to eventually contest the election after he lost. Although the recording of Bannon cements the idea that this was Trump’s plan all along, there were also reports at the time that Trump had told other confidants in private that he planned to declare himself the winnerIt looked as if he was ahead of his opponent on Election Night, but before all of the votes were counted.
