Donald Trump Fought Over Saying 'Election Is Over,' Jan. 6 Hearing Reveals

Then-President Donald Trump refused to admit that the 2020 election was "over" following the siege on the U.S. Capitol, according to the latest hearing of the House select committee investigating the attack of January 6, 2021.

Outtakes of video that Trump made the day after his supporters ransacked the Capitol, on January 7, 2021, were shown during a primetime hearing of the committee on Thursday night. They showed that Trump had difficulty saying the rioters "broke the law" and was unwilling to admit the election had ended more than two months after Election Day.

"To those who broke the law, you will pay. You do not represent our movement, you do not represent our country and if you broke the law ... I can't say that," Trump said during the outtakes. "I'm not going to ... I already said you will pay."

"But this election is now over, Congress has certified the results," he continued, before interrupting the recording to voice his disapproval. "I don't want to say the election is over. I just want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election is over, OK?"

Trump's daughter and then-adviser Ivanka Trump could be heard off-camera suggesting that the line "now Congress has certified the results" be used alone, to which Donald Trump agreed. The final version of the video did not include an admission that the election had ended.

Committee member Elaine Luria, a Democrat who represents Virginia's 2nd Congressional District, asked Daniel Pottinger, Trump's former deputy national security adviser, to comment on the refusal after the outtakes were played.

"On January 7th, one day after he incited insurrection based on a lie, President Trump still could not say that the election was over," said Luria. "Mr. Pottinger ... can you please share with us your view about the oath of office and how that translates into accepting election results and a transfer of power?"

"You have to conform with the law, no matter how bitter the result," Pottinger testified. "If you continue to contest an election, you're not just contesting an election anymore. You're actually challenging the Constitution itself. You're challenging the societal norms that allow us to remain unified."

Nearly two years after he lost, Trump has continued to maintain that the 2020 election was rife with massive voter fraud and that it was "stolen" from him by President Joe Biden, despite a lack of any credible evidence to back up his claims.

Members of the January 6 committee and former White House aides also blasted the former president for refusing to condemn the mob that attempted to stop Congress from certifying Biden's Electoral College win.

"Virtually everyone told President Trump to condemn the violence in clear and unmistakable terms and those on Capitol Hill and across the nation begged President Trump to help," said Luria. "But the former president chose not to do what all of those people begged."

"Almost everybody wanted President Trump to instruct the mob to disperse [but] President Trump refused," said Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois.

Former Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Matthews testified about a fellow Trump aide suggesting that it would be "handing a win to the media if you were to condemn his supporters."

Matthews and Pottinger resigned from the Trump administration on January 6. They both on Thursday condemned a January 6 tweet from Trump that said then-Vice President Mike Pence "didn't have the courage" to overturn the election results as the rioters were inside the Capitol.

"I thought that the tweet about the vice president was the last thing that was needed in that moment," Matthews said. "I remember thinking that this was gonna be bad for him to tweet this because it was essentially him giving the green light to these people."

"The tweet looked to me like the opposite of what we really needed at that moment," said Pottinger. "It looked like fuel being poured on the fire. That was the moment that I decided that I was going to resign."

Matthews said that she realized she needed to resign due to Trump's "refusal to act and call off the mob that day and his refusal to condemn the violence," which she said "was indefensible."

Newsweek has reached out to Trump's office for comment.