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Former President Donald Trump was desperate to beat then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 election, telling aides, “I can’t lose to this f—— guy,” according to a new book excerpt published in The Washington Post.

In “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year,” The Post’s Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker wrote that by the morning of Election Day last year, Trump was “upbeat” and that some of his advisors were already saying he would beat Biden in a landslide.

“Several women who worked in the White House arrived wearing red sweaters in a show of optimism, while some Secret Service agents on the president’s detail sported red ties for the occasion,” the excerpt said.

And while Trump was exhausted from a final spurt of rallies before the big day, he was confident he had secured his victory against Biden, even as his campaign manager urged patience given the huge number of mail-in ballots that would take longer to be counted.

Later, Trump told reporters he hadn’t thought about writing an acceptance speech or a concession speech.

“Hopefully, we’ll be only doing one of those two,” he said, according to the excerpt. “And, you know, winning is easy. Losing is never easy. Not for me it’s not.”

In the end, Biden defeated Trump in a landslide, securing 306 Electoral College votes compared to Trump’s 232. A candidate needs 270 to win the White House.

Biden beat Trump in every battleground states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada. He also flipped Georgia, which hadn’t voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since 1992, when Bill Clinton carried the state.

Read the original article on Business Insider