Former Attorney General Bill Barr said on Thursday’s installment of Bari Weiss’s “Honestly” podcast that he was “wrong” in thinking former President Donald Trump would admit he lost the 2020 presidential election.
Weiss said, “Trump had been making some comments ahead of the election about not leaving office that you and many others had been writing off as a joke of hyperbole.”
She asked, “Were you wrong?”
Barr said, “It was a mystery to me why people keep on saying that he was going to try to remain in office. I thought they were setting the stage for a close election that they won and claiming that he had stolen the election, and that still may be the case. But I had never heard of some plan to stay in office, and I don’t know anyone who heard of that it except it appears Steve Bannon heard of it.”
Weiss asked, “Did you underestimate though Trump’s degree for the truth disregard for the results of the election?”
Barr said, “I underestimated how far he would take it. I thought on December 14, when I tendered my resignation and the states had all certified their votes, that was it. That was the last stop. There was no process beyond that that would allow undoing that. I thought it was safe to leave at that point, and I was wrong. I did not expect him to take it was far as he did with these very wacky legal theories.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN