Donald Trump got caught forgetting his own lie — that the 2020 election was stolen from him — during an interview with journalist Ramin Setoodeh for his new book, “Apprentice in Wonderland,” according to a tape Setoodeh shared Thursday with MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace.
Setoodeh, the co-editor-in-cheif of Variety, told Wallace that he and Trump were discussing the latter's falling out with his once close friend, former Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera. As the subject came up , the presumptive GOP nominee let it slip that Rivera called him after he “lost the election,” which he then quickly corrected to say, “I won the election, but when they said we lost.”
Trump went on to belittle Rivera, who he said "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."
As Wallace noted, Trump, "speaking casually," actually "admitted" that he lost. At the same time, he publicly insists that he won, a lie fervently believed by supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Setoodeh said the interview took place in August 2021.
“He was very comfortable that day because we were actually watching clips of 'The Apprentice,' and I think part of the reason the mask slipped off was that he was remembering his life as an entertainer, he was very amused, he was excited to see himself in the boardroom,” the author said.
“This is all performance art for Donald Trump,” he added.
At least one legal expert believes Trump's remark could be used against him.
"This statement made on tape and on the record by Mr. Trump would be admissible in evidence against him on the issue of his corrupt intent in the four Smith indictments in DC that SCOTUS is inexcusably keeping on hold in United States v. Trump," Laurence Tribe, a law professor at Harvard University, posted on X.
