Donald Trump is seen literally unable to say he lost the 2020 election in a newly released video presented by the Jan 6 committee.
As the committee probing the attack on the US Capitol held its eighth presentation, it played video of the then president repeatedly rehearing a speech condemning the violence, that his staff had urged him to make.
“I don’t want to say the election’s over,” Mr Trump is heard to say in an outake of a video his staff filmed on Jan 7.
Earlier, Sarah Matthews, a former deputy press secretary, called Jan 2021, “one of the darkest days in our nation’s history”.
Ms Matthews said because of Mr Trump’s response to the insurrection earlier in the day, she had already decided to resign, but a tweet by then-President Trump at 6:0p.m cemented her mind
“I thought that Jan. 6, 2021, was one of the darkest days in our nation’s history and President Trump was treating it as a celebratory occasion with that tweet and so it just further cemented my decision to resign,” Ms Matthews testified.