WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump, who was elected twice to the nation's highest office but still refuses to concede his 2020 defeat, said Thursday he needed to win at polls to satisfy his ego.
"They rigged the second election. I had to win it. Had to win it. I needed it for my own ego," the Republican president said during a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.
"I would've had a bad ego for the rest of my life."
Trump apparently was referring to his 2020 reelection bid, which he lost to Democratic challenger Joe Biden in tightly contested polls.
"Now I really have a big ego. Beating these lunatics was incredible," added the 79-year-old billionaire.
After easily defeating Democrat Kamala Harris for a historic comeback in 2024, Trump continues to insist that he won in 2020, even though US courts have unequivocally confirmed the vote's validity.
Since returning to office one year ago, Trump has openly tasked the Department of Justice to carry out a retribution campaign to rewrite the 2020 polls result, alarming opposition Democrats and civil liberties advocates.
The latest episode in this campaign was last week's search of an election center in the southern state of Georgia by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
On January 28, FBI agents removed 700 boxes of electoral documents including ballots from Fulton County, an Atlanta area jurisdiction at the heart of Trump's unfounded accusations of electoral fraud.
The president has also repeatedly floated a plan to "nationalize" elections, an idea that would run counter to the US Constitution.
The nation's charter document entrusts the organization of elections -- whether at the local or national levels -- to the 50 states.