In a rare interview, Donald Trump’s chief of staff appeared to reveal that she once told the president the 2020 election was not stolen from him.
Speaking to Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, on Fox News, Susie Wiles was asked what was “the toughest thing you ever had to tell him.”
Wiles said: “The 2020 election. Coming to him after the 2020 election, in ’21, and telling him what he thought was the circumstance wasn’t – which is how I got into all this.
“He said, well can you fix it?
“But he’s such a resilient person and he’s seen so much, it’s very hard to surprise him.”
Ahead of the 2020 election, Trump repeatedly suggested that if he lost his re-election bid that coming November, he would claim that he’d been cheated. Speaking in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in August 2020 he said: “We have to win the election. We can’t play games. Go out and vote. Do those beautiful absentee ballots, or just make sure your vote gets counted. Make sure because the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.”
After his defeat in November, he did indeed claim the election had been stolen from him.
Along with his most loyal supporters, he pushed dozens of courts cases aimed at overturning his loss, as well trying to force officials in Georgia to “find” him enough votes to change the result there, and eventually telling a crowd of MAGA supporters in Washington, D.C. to go up to the Capitol and “fight like hell” on the day his rival Joe Biden’s victory was being formalised – prompting the January 6 riot.
Despite a lack of evidence to confirm any serious or widespread fraud, Trump has continued to say he was cheated in 2020.
The claim, nicknamed “the Big Lie,” has become almost a loyalty test for those in his circle, with high-profile Republicans still refusing to acknowledge that Biden won the election – making it unusual that Wiles would appear to publicly admit she told Trump that he wasn’t cheated.
Trump has a long record of claiming he can only lose through fraud. Ahead of the 2016 election he told a crowd in Altoona, Pennsylvania that he could only lose the state in that year’s election if the Democrats cheated. He said: “We’re gonna watch Pennsylvania. Go down to certain areas and watch and study and make sure other people don’t come in and vote five times. The only way we can lose, in my opinion – and I really mean this, Pennsylvania – is if cheating goes on. I really believe it.”
In fact, he won the state by just over 44,000 votes.
Earlier that year, he lost the Iowa caucuses during the Republican primary to Ted Cruz. A furious Trump accused the Florida senator of stealing the win and demanded a do-over. Cruz responded by telling reporters: “Donald’s insults get more and more hysterical the more upset he gets … I wake up every day and laugh at the latest thing Donald has tweeted.”
Ironically, Trump’s own criminal conviction in May 2024 related to his efforts to hush up a pay-off to an adult actress he had allegedly had an affair with, in a bid to corruptly influence the 2016 election. He was also criminally charged over his efforts to get Georgia officials to change the 2020 result in the state, and over his part in the January 6 riot. The first case is pending, while charges in the second were dismissed when Trump was re-elected in November last year. He has denied any wrongdoing in all the cases against him.
