President Donald Trump still won’t bring himself to concede the election he decisively lost to President-elect Joe Biden. But he now acknowledges he will leave the White House if Biden’s win is affirmed by the Electoral College, which is firmly on track to do just that in a few weeks.
“Certainly I will,” he said Thursday when asked if he will vacate the premises after electors make Biden’s win formal. “But you know that.”
Trump, who took questions from reporters for the first time since the election, unleashed another round of complaints about the vote and theatrical warnings that “a lot of things” would happen before the Electoral College meets Dec. 14 that could possibly change results. But while he’s stirring uncertainty about how he will behave in the weeks ahead, there is no real suspense about the outcome.
All states must certify their results before the Electoral College meets and any challenge must be resolved by Dec. 8. States have already begun that process, including Michigan, where Trump and his allies tried and failed to delay the process, and Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Nothing stands in the way of Biden taking office Jan. 20 with a clear margin of electoral votes.
No concession is needed from Trump for Biden to become president, none has been offered and Trump may never admit he was beaten fair and square. But there were a few signs that Trump was coming to terms with his loss.
At one point he expressed concern that Biden would get the glory from pending coronavirus vaccines. “Don’t let him take credit for the vaccines,” Trump said, “because the vaccines were me, and I pushed people harder than they’ve ever been pushed before.”
The fact that a sitting American president even had to address whether or not he would leave office after losing reelection underscores the extent to which Trump has smashed one convention after another over the last three weeks.
Vote certification at the local and state level is typically a ministerial task that gets little notice, but that changed with Trump’s fierce but fruitless legal challenges and attempts to manipulate the certification process in battleground states he lost.
No evidence has emerged of the widespread voting fraud that Trump and his legal team have repeatedly alleged, only to be slapped down by judges and state election officials.
Trump spoke to reporters in the White House’s ornate Diplomatic Reception Room after holding a teleconference with U.S. military leaders stationed across the globe. He thanked them for their service, joked that they shouldn’t eat too much turkey, then turned to the election after ending the call. He repeated grievances and angrily denounced officials in Georgia and Pennsylvania, two key states that helped give Biden the win.
Trump’s administration has already given the green light for a formal transition to get underway. Yet Trump took issue with Biden moving forward.
“I think it’s not right that he’s trying to pick a Cabinet,” Trump said, even though officials from both teams are already working together to get Biden’s team up to speed.
Asked if he’ll attend the inauguration, Trump said he knows the answer but doesn’t want to say.
He said he’ll go to Georgia to rally supporters before two Senate runoff elections that will determine which party controls the Senate. The White House said that rally is expected Dec. 5.
One of the reasons Republicans have stood by Trump and his baseless claims of fraud has been to keep his loyal base energized for those Jan 5 runoffs. But Trump, in his remarks, openly questioned whether that election would be fair, casting suspicions that could dampen Republican turnout.
“I think you’re dealing with a very fraudulent system,” he said. “I’m very worried about that.” He said: “People are very disappointed that we were robbed.”
Trump made clear that he will probably never formally concede, even if he said he would leave the White House.
“It’s gonna be a very hard thing to concede,” he said. “Because we know there was massive fraud.”
Electors “will have made a mistake” by affirming Biden’s win, he said.
Yet “time isn’t on our side.”
Will he run again in 2024? Trump said he doesn’t “want to talk about 2024 yet.”
“This has a long way to go,” Trump said, even though he lost.
You writers are suppose to bring the truth forward. Clearly you have not heard the Gettysbury hearing. How uninformed and stupid can you be??? This article is so loaded with bullshit. With all the material evidence of fraud how can you be so corrupt and stupid. Biden needs to go to prison and so do you for printing such misrepresentations.
You need to get writers who know the constitution. This writer is a disgrace to your 4Freedom.com. Per our constitution, this article shows your author is uninformed . Biden is NOT the “President-Elect”. He may get that if he receives 270 electoral votes delivered to the federal government which can ONLY be determined by the states per the constitutional requirements (both Federal and State constitution. Just because a bunch of fake news organizations who claim they counted the votes means NOTHING along with this author’s false article above. There are a number of open judicial actions that may significantly change the final electoral votes to Trump. Learn your constitution – correct your error!
Totally unfair. Arguments not taken into consideration or investigated to the extent they should have. Even if the recounts are correct still in favor of Biden – what about all the ones that are from duplicates or dead people or votes discarded or changed. I don’t see how they can detect all that in enough time or thoroughly investigate all the votes that came in late or no signature authorization. Counting votes doesn’t check all that.
I won’t be reading or following this site anymore!!! Your writers SUCK!!!
I agree with President Trump, he was robbed from being our President again. I’ve been wondering when Nancy P mentioned “they at a lot of different things up there sleeve” she wasn’t kidding , I think this was one of them. I watch that whole election from the time it started to the time it ended and President Trump was winning big in all the states until Fox News called Biden win in Arizona then it became a domino effect. Arizona was all red except the corner ends of the state, I don’t know how they could of called it the way they did , you know they pulled a fast one. But what really mind blowing is that nothing is happening to anybody that committed a crime and yet if it was some everyday person they would of already been put in jail or prison. But President Trump is still my President and Joe Biden won’t last to long Nancy was already talking about the 25th amendment. Think about it.
After readying this article, I thought I was reading some journalistic-less hack writing for MSNBC or others in the mainstream media. If this is how this site writes things that are fact-less and biased, then I have no reason whatsoever to read this site unless this kind of superficial drivel stops. If it doesn’t, I will gladly unsubscribe!!
PRESIDENT TRUMP CLEARLY WON THIS ELECTION AND THERE WAS MASSIVE CORRUPTION AND FRAUD IN ALL THE SWING STATES. IN PENNSYLVANIA THERE WERE 1.2 million who requested mail in ballots yet 2.5 million ballots showed up?? We’re did they come from?? And those machines they used were connected to the internet? Why? There so called glitch that happened when the president was winning every state !! Then all of a sudden that happened and then the votes flipped by the thousands for Biden !! THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE NOT STUPID!!! KING GEORGE WON THE WAR WITH 5% of his Army!! 74 MILLION PEOPLE WILL NEVER SURRENDER OUR GREAT COUNTRY TO SOCIALISM!! DONT POKE THE BEAR !!! America THE FREE HOME OF THE BRAVE !!! ✝️🇺🇸
To even say that there is no evidence of irregularities, in layman’s terms fraud, is to ignore a great many already publicized facts.
Coming to terms of the inevitable is quite different than all the nonsense that the press has been spouting. Did anyone actually expect President Trump barricade himself in the White House and force a shootout??!!?? Of course not.
Were the irregularities enough to change the outcome of the election? I think so, but whether it was or not, these need to be corrected so that it never happens again. If you think it’s fine because your guy is winning, then you are inviting corruption from all sides and begging for us to become Venezuela rather than the example and beacon we have been all this time.
Good luck to you President Trump keep fighting to Make America Great Again Drain the swamp God Bless America God Bless You We Love You!!
I don’t like you saying he lost because he didn’t I hope he never give in to the radical left every one now this election was corrupt and president Trump won by a land slide .lt post me of when people put bull crap dought in there articles.i will problly un subscribe
Sounds to me like this reporter works for CNN. You need to leave your job as a conservative reporter. There is plenty of evidence that has been presented if you’d get your head out of the sand and listen. Any more reports like this and I will be deleting this site!
President Trump will never stop fighting for our country. He was fighting for us long before that ride down the escalator. Too bad there were enough America haters to concoct the theft of the election. My condolences to the majority of Americans who recognized all President Trump was trying to do for us and voted for him. We were scammed but hang tough. We will survive and will do all we can to make America survive.