Former President Donald Trump publicly admitted that he did not win the 2020 presidential election, telling podcaster Lex Fridman that he “barely lost.”

In a podcast episode released Tuesday, Fridman asked the Republican candidate about his expectations for next week’s debate against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump initially responded, “I debated a lot… I did well in the debates,” before delving into the number of votes he received in 2020, saying, “I became president. Then I got millions more votes the second time than the first time.”

“I was told if I got 63 million votes, which I got the first time, ‘I would win. You can’t not win.’ And I got millions more votes and lost by a hair’s breadth,” Trump added.

Trump received about 74 million votes nationwide in 2020, compared to 81 million for Joe Biden.

His admission represents a departure from his usual rhetoric about the results of the 2020 presidential election, which he often claims were “rigged.”

Later in the podcast with Fridman, Trump also expressed doubts about the election, saying, “I believe the election was a fraud, and a lot of people thought it was, and they wanted answers.”

After the 2020 election, Trump and his team spent weeks challenging the election results in swing states such as Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Trump faces four federal crime charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. A federal grand jury returned an indictment alleging that Trump knowingly lied about the 2020 election by spreading claims that were “baseless, objectively unreasonable and constantly changing.” Trump has indicated that his lawyers will enter a not guilty plea on his behalf during a hearing on the case on Thursday.

In addition, Trump is facing criminal charges in Fulton County, Georgia, for his attempts to manipulate the state’s election results.

In the run-up to this year’s presidential election, Republicans have already filed lawsuits in several swing states. In Michigan, for example, the issue is whether Detroit has hired enough Republican poll workers. In North Carolina, they claim that the state’s voter lists could allow non-citizens to vote.

Democrats warn that these pre-election legal steps could be used by the Republican Party to sow doubt if Trump loses the election again.