According to CNN analyst and New York Times reporter, Maggie Haberman, following his 2020 election loss, former US President Donald Trump told several of his aides that he wouldn’t leave the White House or let Joe Biden take over the government. Trump told one aide that he would simply not leave.

“We’re never leaving,” Trump told another. “How can you leave when you won an election?”

Trump’s refusal to leave the White House has never been reported before. The book adds new details to the post-election period chaos that ensued after Trump refused to accept the results and concede defeat. There were numerous attempts to overturn the election results, which led to the US Capitol attack by rioters on January 6, 2021.

Maggie Haberman’s new book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, will be released on October 4, 2022.

The exposés from Haberman’s book come amid investigations by the US House of Representatives and the Justice Department into Trump’s refusal to hand over power after the 2020 election. More hearings are underway from the House Select Committee Investigating the January 6 Attack and a final report is expected from them this fall. Several former Trump aides were served with subpoenas by federal investigators.

Maggie Haberman had been covering Trump for the New York Times since his presidential campaign in 2016, making her a target of Trump’s contempt on Twitter.

According to Haberman’s book, in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 elections, Trump seemed to have come to terms with his defeat as he sought advice from his team on what went wrong. He was seen comforting one advisor by telling him that he thought they had it and did their best.  Trump’s mood changed abruptly, and around January 2021, he informed his aides that he would not leave the White House for President Biden.

Although Trump had dismissed questions on whether he would concede defeat, according to The Guardian, in November 2020, he replied to a reporter and said he would leave the White House if the Electoral College voted for Biden.

Maggie Haberman, who has worked for both the New York Times and CNN, wrote that after Trump’s loss, he tried to keep all options open for as long as possible. She wrote that Trump was asking everyone he could for advice on which options would guarantee success for him, indicating that Trump was uncertain about the path to take after his defeat.

The forthcoming book also details what the people around Trump were doing in the aftermath of his election loss. According to Haberman, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, hesitated to talk to Trump about the loss.

Haberman wrote in her book that Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser at the time, had encouraged a group of former Trump aides to go to the White House and brief Trump about the election outcome, refusing to join the group. He compared it to a deathbed scene when asked about it.

“The priest comes later,” Kushner said sardonically.