Trump's election loss coping mechanism is straight out of The Simpsons

(Image credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

last updated 16 December 2020

President Trump is reportedly getting close to admitting he lost the 2020 election. Just don't call it a loss.

Trump thoroughly lost his re-election bid to President-elect Joe Biden, something the end of Trump's legal challenges and the Electoral College affirmed on Monday. And while Trump is getting close to at least tacitly admitting he's out of the White House, he'd rather frame it as a non-win, one source who talked to him recently told Axios. "If we don't win, I don't say 'lose.' I say 'I don't win,'" Trump reportedly put it to the source recently — a line that sounds like it could be right from The Simpsons.

Despite his reframing, Trump is reportedly even so down about his loss that he's "reluctant to talk much about a 2024 run," Axios reports. Trump has repeatedly hinted at staging a comeback bid in the next election, though it's reportedly just a cry for attention as Trump stares down future irrelevance. As the source who spoke to Trump recently put it to Axios, "it's an acknowledgement of the end" of Trump's 2020 antics.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.