Biographer Says Donald Trump Wants to Be ‘President in Exile’ at Mar-a-Lago

Gwenda Blair, an author and journalist who’s written two books about President Donald Trump and his family, claimed on Thursday that the outgoing president wants to set himself up as a sort of ‘president in exile’ while consolidating the myth that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Blair, who wrote The Trumps and Donald Trump: The Candidate told Irish radio station Newstalk that Trump will “do anything that he thinks is to his benefit” as his time in the White House comes to an end. He will leave office on January 20.

“I think there are going to be a rash of pardons and he is going to continue stiffing his supporters, throwing them under the bus,” Blair said. “Now he says he is not going to pay his lawyer Rudi Giuliani. He is not going to pay any of those bills. Wherever he can stiff somebody in the remaining days he will.”

There have been unconfirmed reports that Trump has directed that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, no longer be paid and that the president is screening Giuliani’s calls.

“He will spend the remaining time trying to consolidate this right-wing base to keep feeding the line that the election was stolen and to establish himself as kind of like the President in exile with Mar-a-Lago as the White House in exile as it were, a kind of Avignon; the two popes,” Blair said.

“He will be president in exile,” she said.

Blair isn’t the first person to speculate about Trump trying to become an “Avignon” president following his defeat but it remains to be seen how Trump’s post-presidency will pan out. He may not be able to live at Mar-a-Lago if his neighbors are successful, and could soon face trial in the Senate following his impeachment on Wednesday.