Special Poll
Former President Trump, speaking at a rally in Lititz, Pa., on Sunday, expressed regret over leaving the White House in 2021. He acknowledged Democrats’ concerns about his reluctance to relinquish power after losing the 2020 presidential election.
“I shouldn’t have left, I mean, honestly,” Trump remarked. “We did so well.”
He added that now, “every polling booth has hundreds of lawyers standing there.”
Trump, who has consistently refused to accept his loss to President Biden, saw a decline in support among some voters after his supporters attempted to halt Congress from certifying the election results following his speech on the Ellipse in Washington.
Criticism has been directed at Trump for remaining in the White House while the Capitol was stormed on Jan. 6, 2021, resulting in attacks on law enforcement and damage to Capitol grounds.
In her 2022 book, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman revealed that Trump had told his aides he would stay in the White House after Biden’s inauguration.
“I’m just not going to leave,” Trump reportedly told one aide. To another, he said, “We’re never leaving. How can you leave when you won an election?”
Sarafina Chitika, a senior spokesperson for the Harris campaign, described Trump’s message about not leaving the White House as a “dark closing message from a candidate with nothing to offer the American people.”
“It’s time to turn the page on” Trump, Chitika’s post stated.
Vice President Harris also spoke from the Ellipse, where more than 75,000 people gathered on Tuesday to hear one of her final appeals to voters. She emphasized that Trump had stood “at this very spot nearly four years ago and sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election.”
Harris believes that highlighting Trump’s past actions can motivate reluctant voters to head to the polls, arguing that his conduct makes him unfit for office.