Steve Bannon speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
Steve Bannon told associates that Donald Trump intended to declare victory on Election Night, regardless of the vote results.
The former White House adviser said on Oct. 31, 2020, that Trump planned to claim he had won and then blame any shift in mail-in voting totals toward Joe Biden on fraud -- which is exactly what the former president did, reported Mother Jones.
“What Trump’s going to do, is just declare victory, right?" Bannon told the group in a recording obtained by the publication. "He’s going to declare victory, but that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just going to say he’s a winner.”
Trump's scheme had been reported at the time, and Bannon discussed the idea on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020, but the recorded comments show the former president did not spontaneously decide to claim victory in the early hours of Nov. 4, 2020, at the urging of Rudy Giuliani.
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“As it sits here today, at 10 or 11 o’clock Trump’s gonna walk in the Oval, tweet out, ‘I’m the winner, game over -- suck on that,'" Bannon said.
Bannon said Democrats would be at a disadvantage because Republicans were more likely to vote in person, so their votes would be counted faster than mail-in ballots, and he said Trump could exploit that gap.
"Trump’s going to take advantage of it," he said. "That’s our strategy. He’s going to declare himself a winner.”
“So when you wake up Wednesday morning, it’s going to be a firestorm,” Bannon added. “You’re going to have antifa, crazy. The media, crazy. The courts are crazy, and Trump’s gonna be sitting there mocking, tweeting sh*t out: ‘You lose. I’m the winner. I’m the king.'”
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