Former Attorney General William Barr on Monday said former President Trump lost the 2020 presidential election because he “alienated independent and Republican voters in the suburbs.”
“If you look at the vote, the actual vote, and there’s no mystery as to why he lost,” Barr told co-anchor Savannah Guthrie on NBC’s “Today” show.
“He lost for the reason he was told for a whole year he was gonna lose, which is he alienated independent and Republican voters in the suburbs. That’s why he lost,” he added.
Barr resigned in December 2020 after breaking with Trump and announcing that the Department of Justice did not find evidence of widespread voter fraud that would have altered the results of the election. He appeared for his first live interview since that resignation on Monday
The former attorney general’s comments came after Guthrie asked how Barr would explain to others in the GOP that Trump lost the election legitimately. She cited a poll that found only 21 percent of Republicans said they believe President Biden was legitimately elected.
Barr said Trump clearly lost because he alienated independents and Republicans in suburbs, called the early allegations of voter fraud “false,” and noted that evidence bolstering allegations of fraud has not emerged since.
“First, all the examples that were thrown up very early were, you know, vaporware. There was nothing to them. They were, they were just false,” Barr said.
“Second, no evidence has come out since then,” he added.
More independents broke for Biden in the 2020 election, according to Pew Research Center, 52 percent to 43 percent. Biden also made improvements among suburban voters compared to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016.
Barr appeared on NBC’s “Today” show one day before his book, “One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General,” is set to publish.
He also sat with NBC’s Lester Holt for an interview that aired Sunday night during which he said there was no evidence Trump was “legally responsible” for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, but noted that he believes the president was “responsible in the broad sense of that word.”
Trump blasted Barr in a letter to Holt last week, calling his former attorney general “slow” and “lethargic,” and writing that he “realized early on that he never had what it takes to make a great Attorney General.”
On Monday, Barr said the Trump letter was “par for the course” and “childish.”