2 Months Before The 2024 Vote, Trump Reprises 2020 Election Lies That Led To Jan. 6

With less than two months to go before the 2024 election, former President Donald Trump is reprising his lies about a “stolen” 2020 election that he used to instigate a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol — the same strategy that tanked pro-Trump candidates in the 2022 midterms.

“No, I don’t acknowledge that at all,” the GOP presidential nominee said at Tuesday night’s debate against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, when asked if he was finally admitting that he lost the White House race four years ago.

The coup-attempting former president also complained about the hundreds of prosecutions of his followers and the shooting death of one who tried to climb through a broken-out window into a hallway where House members were being evacuated.

“Ashli Babbitt was shot by an out-of-control police officer that should have never, ever shot her,” he said in a long, meandering answer to a moderator’s question. “It’s a disgrace, but we didn’t do — this group of people that have been treated so badly.”

Most Republican consultants and elected officials who support Trump have for years urged him to focus on what he intends to do to help Americans should he win back the White House, not on his grievances about having lost four years ago.

But Trump has only occasionally accepted that advice, returning again and again to his lies that Democrat Joe Biden cheated to beat him in 2020 and that he himself did nothing wrong leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021, even though he was impeached for his conduct and now faces two criminal indictments over it.

“It’s a misconception that Trump lacks message discipline,” said Amanda Carpenter, a former aide to Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and now a researcher for the group United To