President Donald Trump’s niece Mary Trump, Thursday on ABC’s “The View,” called her uncle “a very desperate man” because he could not mentally accept he lost the 2020 election.

Trump said, “We’re seeing a very desperate man. Somebody who knows that his best option is to cling to power no matter who gets hurt in the process. Obviously, there really isn’t any way for him to do that legitimately. So, he’s going to pursue whatever illegitimate means that he has at his disposal. And, you know, it’s really troubling because it’s not just that Donald is hurting himself, which he is doing by continuing to play this out to these absurd lengths. He’s doing serious damage to our democracy, to people’s faith in the American electoral process, and he’s also undermining the legitimacy of the incoming administration, which is going to make it that much harder for President Biden and Vice President Harris to get us out of these interconnected crises that we’re all suffering from right now.”

Co-host Sunny Hostin said, “President Trump continues to publicly claim that he won the election, even saying that his own FBI and DOJ departments may be involved in a ploy to rig the election which Attorney General Barr said isn’t true at all. So you believe that President Trump really believes he won this, and is being cheated out of something, or is something else going on?”

Trump said, “It’s a great question, and it’s pretty complicated because, on the one hand, it is impossible for Donald to believe that he lost. You know, he’s lost before in his life, but he’s never had to be in a situation in which he can’t somehow turn that loss into a win either through cheating or buying his way out of a jam, or using somebody else’s connections and power. There’s literally nothing he can do about this. So, it’s sort of unfathomable because in my family, losing was literally the worst thing you could do. So, it’s putting enormous amounts of pressure on him. On the one hand, he can’t admit it to himself because that would suggest that there’s no way for him to get out of this mess. So, he’s going to continue to undermine people’s faith in our government and our institutions, and again, it’s just another 48 days he has to keep, you know, taking a wrecking ball to the United States government.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN