MSNBC: New Audio Reveals Trump Knows He Lost 2020 Election

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HUTCHINSON: “He said something to the effect of ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don’t want people to know that we lost.’”

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Wallace: “Hi again, everyone. It’s 5:00 in the east. Trump knew all along, right? That he lost. Even though he has raged now for four years that the 2020 presidential election was somehow stolen from him in private, even Donald Trump has admitted the truth. Even Donald Trump knows the truth. It’s the truth he’s so embarrassed about that President Joe Biden — he refers to him as ‘this guy’ — beat him. Beat him in the 2020 presidential election. Today, in a brand new tape never heard before, we’re hearing that private admission in the ex-president’s own words on tape. A remarkable slip of the mask, right? Trump’s facade made during one of his half dozen interviews with writer Ramin Setoodeh, author of a brand new book chronicling Trump’s time as host of The Apprentice. We spoke with Ramin on this program yesterday. He told us about this moment. Here is that never before heard exchange that came up when Trump was talking about former Fox News commentator Geraldo Rivera. Listen.”

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SETOODEH: “What was Geraldo like?”

Trump: “He was good. He did a good job. He was smart, cunning. He did a good job.”

SETOODEH: “And are you guys still close, or?”

Trump: “No, I don’t think so. He is, uh — after I lost the election — I won the election, but when they said we lost — he called me up three or four times. I didn’t take his call because I was so busy fighting it, you know, with — with what went on. And we’ve caught them, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but you will. But he called me up three or four times. And finally, I had a little time, I called him back. And he went on Fox and he started talking about ‘the president called me.’ I didn’t call him. I returned his phone call. And he started talking very personally about how I was feeling, how I was doing. And I said that’s really a betrayal. I didn’t talk about how I was feeling. I just was on the phone call that lasted very quickly. Just, ‘hey, how you doing, Geraldo? How’s it going?’ It’s not my deal — he’s not my psychiatrist. But he made it sound like it was such a big deal. It was a nothing. All I did was return his call, but he said ‘the president called me,’ like I’m reaching out to him. And I haven’t spoken to him since.”

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Wallace: “So, despite Trump’s efforts to put his mask back on, right, to quickly cover it up, you heard the truth pour out of him. ‘Called me after I lost, Geraldo. I mean, I won.’ But he lost. He lost. He knows it. And speaking conversationally, he admitted it on tape. But meanwhile, publicly and even there in that call, the disgraced ex-president continues to perpetuate and spread the lie. The lie that has undermined trust and faith in our elections, in American democracy. The lie that his own supporters have bought into hook, line and sinker, some of them to cost of their freedom, their liberty. The lie that fueled the supporters into committing a deadly coup against the United States government at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. The lie for which dozens of Trump’s allies have been indicted across several states now. More than half of all Republican voters believe the lie. The lie that Trump couldn’t even keep up in a taped interview. But now we know. The cult leader doesn’t even believe the lie.”