Trump repeats false claims about 2020 election defeat and denies responsibility for January 6

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday maintained during a nationally televised presidential debate that he won the 2020 election and continues to take no responsibility for the chaos that unfolded at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the building to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

The comments underscored the Republican's refusal to accept the reality of his defeat, even four years later, and his unwillingness to admit the extent to which his falsehoods about his election loss emboldened the mob that stormed the Capitol, leading to violent clashes with police. It also made clear that Trump's grievances about 2020 remain central to his campaign against his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, while he continues to proclaim his loyalty to the rioters.

Asked twice if he regretted anything he did on Jan. 6 when he ordered his supporters to march to the Capitol and exhorted them to “fight with all your might,” Trump initially responded by complaining that the questioner had failed to realize that he had urged the crowd to behave “peacefully and patriotically” and that one of his supporters, Ashli ​​Babbitt, had been shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer inside the building.

He also claimed that protesters who committed crimes during the 2020 anti-racism protests were not prosecuted. But a 2021 Associated Press review of documents in more than 300 federal cases related to the protests sparked by George Floyd's death found that more than 120 defendants in the U.S. pleaded guilty or were convicted in court of federal crimes including riot, arson and conspiracy.

When asked again about his actions on January 6, he replied: “I had nothing to do with it other than that they asked me to give a speech. I showed up to give a speech.”

But he ignored other inflammatory language he used during his speech when he urged the crowd to march to the Capitol, where Congress was meeting to certify President Joe Biden's victory. Trump told the crowd, “If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.” Earlier, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani declared, “Let's have a trial by combat.”

Trump did not tell rioters to leave the Capitol until more than three hours after the attack began. He then released a video telling the rioters it was time to “go home,” but added, “We love you. You are very special people.”

He also repeated the oft-stated false claim that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “rejected” his offer to send “10,000 National Guardsmen or soldiers” to the Capitol. Pelosi is not the commander of the National Guard. When the Capitol was attacked, she and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for military support, including from the National Guard.

Harris, for her part, promised to “open a new chapter” after January 6, when she sat in the Capitol and democracy was attacked.

“To all the viewers who remember January 6th, I say: 'We don't have to go back. Let's not go back. We are not going back. It's time to close the chapter.'”

Trump's false claims extended to his 2020 election defeat, with dozens of courts, Republican state officials and his own attorney general declaring there was no evidence that voter fraud was the deciding factor or that the election was stolen.

Although Trump appeared to admit in a recent podcast interview that he did indeed “lose,” he insisted on Tuesday night that it was a sarcastic remark and resumed his boasts about the election.

“I'll show you Georgia, I'll show you Wisconsin, I'll show you Pennsylvania,” he said, listing the states he falsely claimed he won. “I'll show you that we have so many facts and statistics.”

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Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer and Melissa Goldin contributed to this report.