Trump Slams Alyssa Farah for Saying He Admitted Election Defeat

trump and alyssa farrah — Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty; Drew Angerer/Getty

Donald Trump reacted with characteristic venom after former top aide Alyssa Farah spoke out about him and his false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential race he lost to Joe Biden.

"She was a 'backbencher' in the White House, and is now a nobody again. We put her out there to face the public as little as possible," Trump said in a statement on Monday.

Farah served as Trump's communications director from April 2020 until Dec. 4, 2020, about a month after Trump's defeat at the polls and amid a flurry of baseless allegations of a stolen election from the president and his supporters.

"I left because I was afraid of where these myths could take us," Farah, who had also been Vice President Mike Pence's spokeswoman, said on The View in October.

Since exiting the administration, Farah has been an increasingly vocal member of the anti-Trump GOP minority.

In her resignation letter, however, she called her time in the White House the "honor of a lifetime," The Hill reported at the time.

Farah, 32, recently told CNN that Trump privately admitted that he fell short in the election.

"He knew," she said in a Saturday interview with Pamela Brown. "He told me shortly after that he knew he lost, but then folks got around him. They got information in front of him, and I think his mind genuinely might have been changed about that, and that's scary because he did lose and the facts are out there."

Farah's account echoes with another former top Trump aide told PEOPLE after the election: That source said Trump was initially resigned to his defeat but then grew defiant.

The adviser told PEOPLE they saw Trump in the Oval Office on Nov. 5 "and he really had a fighting spirit about him, but it wasn't this 'fraud, stealing the election.' "

In his statement this week responding to Farah, Trump, 75, brought up her "very nice letter" and asked her to "explain why you wrote it."

He also claimed — in a familiar line about former employees who criticize him — that Farah was actually told to "hit the road" ahead of her departure from the White House.

"It's amazing how these people leave with respect and adoration for me and others in the White House, but as soon as CNN or other cameras get shoved in their face, or the losers from the The View ask a question, or money gets thrown at them, or someone writes a fake book, inglorious lightweights like Farah change so quickly," Trump said in his statement.

"I watched this clown on television saying exactly what they wanted her to say and I watched the lies," he continued. "Was she paid by low-ratings CNN?"

In a separate appearance on CNN, Farah told Jake Tapper that a second Trump term would be a "nightmare scenario."

She said a 2024 run for the former president was "not too far out of the realm of possibility" and that he had already "challenged our institutions near to the breaking point" but would feel unhindered by the pressures of a re-election campaign if he were to take back the White House.

"That's what scares me the most," she said before offering an example: "Whether it's weaponizing the Justice Department against political opponents, whether it's going after the free press, he would certainly be open to using the military for political reasons as well."

Meanwhile, Farah is not counting out another former boss, Vice President Pence. "I actually think some folks are teeing up to run. I think that Pence could be one of them," she told CNN, arguing that Pence, despite his falling out with Trump's supporters, "could put up a formidable fight."

"Backbencher said I told her I lost the Election — never did," Trump also said on Monday. "I virtually never even spoke to Farah (it's like she didn't even exist in the White House)."

A newlywed, Farah married Justin Griffin earlier this month and seemed unbothered by Trump's wordy assault.

"I see I have honeymoon well wishes from my former boss!" she tweeted on Monday. "Too kind!"

Farah has cooperated with the House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and told CNN the investigators, including two Republicans, are in the midst of "a very comprehensive and deliberative process."