'Real sense of frustration' as Trump advisers fear 'he's trying to lose': reporter

ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl spoke to "The View" on Tuesday as voters continued to cast ballots on the final day of the election and revealed some of his conversations with Donald Trump.

"I have to say that I am hearing from people close to Trump a real sense of frustration," Karl revealed. "They think that it's almost as if he is trying to lose an election that they thought he could have won. Usually, you close an election by trying to reach out to those precious few people out there that are still persuadable."

Instead, Karl, said he's done the opposite.

Also Read: Donald Trump believes he's going to lose

"He's gone out, and you had Liz Cheney on and the guns in Liz Cheney's face," he recalled, talking about a comment Trump made to Tucker Carlson saying that because she was a "war hawk," she should have nine "guns trained at her face" to experience the realities of combat first hand.

"These are not exactly the kinds of messages that you usually see a candidate doing in the closing," remarked Karl.

Karl said that he believes Trump personally is at a crossroads.

"On the one hand, if he loses, Jack Smith is still there. The trials move up, and we have sentencing in New York and the federal cases," Karl continued. "He could really go to jail. If he wins, he arguably becomes the most powerful president of our lifetimes because you have the Supreme Court that has the immunity decision."

Karl said that in one of his conversations with Trump, the ex-president said the first time he came into office, he didn't know anything, and there were a lot of people "who tried to rein him in." Those "guardrails" won't be there in 2025.

Perhaps the most shocking detail that Karl revealed, however, is that Trump admitted that he could lose.

Karl said that Trump's voice has been raspy and he he'd been traveling to six states over two days.

"But he said something to me he's never said before," said Karl. "He was projecting confidence when he's saying he's winning everywhere a substantial lead, and I finally said to him, 'So, is there any way you could lose? Do you think there's any way you could lose?' And there was a long pause. You don't get a lot of long pauses with Trump, and he said, 'Yeah, I guess.'"

See the conversation below or at the link here.