Trump Claims ‘Peaceful Transfer Of Power’ After 2020—And Fuels Conspiracies About Jan. 6

Topline

Former President Donald Trump claimed there was a “peaceful transfer of power” after he lost the 2020 election—despite his supporters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 and his indictments for his role trying to overturn the election—and claimed economists critical about his plans are “wrong about everything,” in a contentious Tuesday interview.

Key Facts

Trump told Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait during an interview at the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday that he “left the morning that I was supposed to leave and went to Florida,” referring to the day before Biden’s inauguration in 2021 when Trump moved out of the White House.

Trump also downplayed the Capitol attack that left five people dead, and said incorrectly that “nobody was killed except for Ashli Babbit,” who was shot by a Capitol Police officer as she attempted to climb through a broken window of the Capitol.

Trump said “what he did was horrible,” referring to the officer who shot Babbitt, repeating his previous claims that the shooting was unjustified and Babbitt was “shot in the head” (Babbitt was shot in the shoulder and a federal investigation determined there was insufficient evidence to warrant criminal prosecution of the officer).

Fueling right-wing conspiracies that the attack was staged or somehow facilitated by Capitol Police, Trump said “a lot of strange things happened . . . with people being waved into the Capitol by police, with people screaming ‘go in’ that never got into trouble.”

Trump claimed that “5, 6, 700 people” went “down to the Capitol” of the “hundreds of thousands” of people who attended his speech earlier in the day (the House Select Committee investigating the attack estimates 53,000 people attended the speech).

Tangent

The exchange about Jan. 6 was one of several tense moments between Trump and Micklethwait, who retorted, “You had a peaceful transfer of power compared to Venezuela,” after Trump made the claim. When Micklethwait pointed out Trump’s answer to a question about the Federal Reserve was hard to follow, and that he went from “the dollar to Macron,” Trump brought up a term he has used with increased frequency to describe his meandering thought pattern: “it’s called the weave...as long as you end up in the right location in the end” he said, gesturing in a zig-zag pattern. Trump also said Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal “have been wrong about everything” when Micklethwait told him economists have said his proposals “would wreck the economy, and lead to higher inflation and $7.5 trillion in debt.” When asked about his plan for steep tariffs that Micklethwait said could incite a trade war, Trump said, “it must be hard for you to spend 25 years talking about tariffs as negative and then have somebody explain to you that you’re totally wrong.”

Key Background

The Democrat-led January 6 Committee made four criminal referrals against Trump at the culmination of its 18-month investigation into the Capitol riots, determining he “purposely disseminated false allegations of fraud” that led his supporters to storm the Capitol. The Justice Department subsequently charged Trump with four felonies related to his role in attempting to overturn the election, accusing Trump of pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject the results and planning to declare victory before the results were even counted. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and has claimed, without evidence, they are designed to thwart his chances of winning in November. Trump has refused to concede to Biden since he lost the 2020 election and still claims that it was stolen from him due to widespread fraud in swing states, despite state and federal judges resoundingly rejecting lawsuits challenging the results. He has also refused to say outright that he will accept the results in November and has said he will only do so if he is certain no fraud occurred. At the same time, he has said repeatedly on the campaign trail he believes Democrats can only win if they cheat.

Further Reading

The Biggest New Claims Against Trump In Jack Smith’s Bombshell Filing (Forbes)

January 6 Committee Recommends Four Criminal Charges Against Trump (Forbes)

Here’s How Trump And His Allies Are Teeing Up Potential Election Loss Challenges (Forbes)