Former President Donald Trump refused Wednesday to back off his claim the 2020 election was rigged and that former Vice President Mike Pence could have altered the outcome.
Mr. Trump also dismissed the idea he could have done more to stop the Jan. 6 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol and said he is inclined to pardon some of the rioters.
“I think that when you look at that result and you look at what happened during that election - unless you are a very stupid person - you see what happened,” Mr. Trump said about the 2020 election at a CNN town hall event in New Hampshire. “That was a rigged election.”
Pressed on the issue by moderator Kaitlan Collins, Mr. Trump said that the 2020 outcome is a shame because “our country has gone to hell.”
“Our borders are bad. Our military has been bad. You look at the taxes, you look at inflation. What happened to inflation, It is just destroying our country. We have really become in many ways a third-world country. It is very sad what has happened with this administration and it is something we will turn around on day one,” he said.
Mr. Trump said he hopes the 2024 election is going to be “straight up.”
“If it is straight up we are going to win the election,” Mr. Trump said. “Let’s just win it again, and straighten out our country.”
Mr. Trump also challenged the idea that he failed to deploy the National Guard when the mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, blaming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and D.C. Muriel Bowser for refusing his offer of support and then the lackluster response to the attack.
Mr. Trump was found liable Tuesday for sexual battery and defamation against columnist E. Jean Carroll in the civil trial in which she alleged the former president had raped her in a department store in the 1990s.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Mr. Trump said it is hard to get a fair trial in New York City and said it is being done “for election interference.”
“I don’t know her, I never met her,” he said.
