'Very odd': Trump's 80 seconds deciding where to put his glass of water

Donald Trump was "irate" about losing his Twitter account in the wake of the Jan 6 riots and had convinced himself he won the 2020 election, according to a British documentary maker who had extraordinary access to the former president and his family.

Alex Holder was making a behind-the-scenes film about the Trumps and is now a key witness in the congressional investigation into the attack on the US Capitol.

He has been interviewed for two hours by the January 6 committee, also handing over his footage. Such is the vitriol surrounding the committee's work that Mr Holder is now shadowed by two armed guards wherever he goes.
His three-part series "Unprecedented" will be broadcast on Discovery+ later this summer.

When he went to see Mr Trump at Mar-a-Lago in March 2021, two months after the riot, the former president had changed, Mr Holder said.

The filmmaker told The Telegraph: "He was very angry, very depressed, irritable. One of the things he was most upset about was not having his Twitter platform at that time.

"In the White House he had been furious, very angry, but in Mar-a-Lago it was more of a depressed anger."

Mr Holder said the first thing Mr Trump said to him at Mar-a-Lago was: "Look at this floor. Isn't this the most remarkable flooring you've ever seen?"

He said: "Extraordinary events had taken place, the tragic events of January 6. I was like 'What?' Mar-a-Lago's beautiful, don't get me wrong, but it's parquet wooden flooring.

"So he lives in this very odd, bizarre world where he has to constantly tell you how great he is, and how great things are."

The filmmaker's insights have offered a window for the committee into the president's thinking as the country faced an unprecedented crisis over the transfer of power.

The President and the glass of water

In December 2020, days after the attorney general Bill Barr had said there was no widespread election fraud, Mr Holder sat down with Mr Trump in the White House.

Mr Trump then spent one minute and 20 seconds moving a glass of water around, deciding whether to have it in the camera shot.

"It was just a very odd thing to witness," said Mr Holder. "It shows who he really is. One of those moments where you get to see behind the scenes that is very unique.

"People can interpret that how they wish. They might say 'Oh, he has attention to detail'. Or, people may say all he cares about is the way he looks and is presented. Either way, it's fascinating.

"I was thinking 'how long is this going to go on for?' I was somewhat perturbed, like 'Can we go now'?"

He tweeted a clip of the video on Thursday, saying: “The Trumps did not have editorial control. Full stop.”

This appeared to be a response to quote from a New York Times piece saying “one person close to the Trump family said that they had believed they would have some editorial control over the project”.

Around the time of the interview it became increasingly clear to Mr Holder that Mr Trump genuinely believed the election had been stolen.

Mr Holder said: "He believed in his own lie. He had absolutely convinced himself that he had actually won, and that all the things he was saying prior [to the election] came true, that actually there was some malfeasance.

"I'm not a psychiatrist. But my take was this is not a rational player. Barr had said there was no [fraud] issue. A few days later he [Mr Trump] is going on and on to me about how there's no way President Biden got 80 million votes, and that he needed to find brave judges, and they're not courageous enough to intervene.

"So he lives in an alternate reality, and engaging in that is foolhardy. It's just like talking to a brick wall."

He added: "I was thinking it was absolutely terrifying. The sitting President of the United States, in the diplomatic reception room at the White House, with the guy with the nuclear football outside the room, and this guy [Mr Trump] is clearly somebody who is living in an alternate reality.

"That somebody you're unable to converse with in a rational manner is in charge of the United States of America was astonishing."

Mr Trump proceeded to tell him that the Republican governor and secretary of state of Georgia were "stupid people" for not helping him with checking voters' signatures.

As a result Mr Holder has now been subpoenaed to give evidence in a case in Georgia about Mr Trump' effort to overturn the election result there. He said he would cooperate.

The film-maker said what happened on Jan 6 was "predictable" given what he had seen leading up to it.
His footage of violence from the day has been handed to the Jan 6 Committee.

For the documentary, Mr Holder also interviewed Mr Trump's children Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric, all of whom were fiercely loyal to their father.

He said: "They're certainly a very, very close family. When you see the series you'll see what we believe is the case in terms of who the successor to Donald Trump is. It does have that sort of 'Succession' vibe throughout.

"People will have their own opinions as to which characters in 'Succession' relate to the characters in the Trump family. The bond, ultimately is 'Trump,' the name, the brand, the dynasty. It's all about 'Trump'.

Mr Holder said, of the three younger Trumps, Don Jr was most like his father, although the former president "adored" his daughter Ivanka.

He said: "All the way through my interactions, they echoed their father's [political] positions. They do it in slightly different ways.

"Don Jr is much more vociferous, much more passionate. He comes across as somebody that actually believes the things his father is saying, and he'll go further. Ivanka is more, quote unquote, refined on that."

Ivanka was "certainly quieter than her brothers re the claims about election fraud," he said.