Trump says he’ll leave if Electoral College seats Biden
WASHINGTON
(AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will leave the
White House if the Electoral College formalizes President-Elect Joe
Biden’s victory — even as he insisted such a decision would be a
“mistake” — as he spent his Thanksgiving renewing baseless claims that
“massive fraud” and crooked officials in battleground states caused his
election defeat.
“Certainly I will. But you know that,” Trump said
Thursday when asked whether he would vacate the building, allowing a
peaceful transition of power in January. But Trump — taking questions
for the first time since Election Day — insisted that “a lot of things”
would happen between now and then that might alter the results.
“This has a long way to go,” Trump said, even though he lost.
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. While there is no evidence of the kind of widespread fraud
Trump has been alleging, he and his legal team have nonetheless been
working to cast doubt on the integrity of the election and trying to
overturn voters’ will in an unprecedented breach of Democratic norms.
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 and jokingly warned
them not to 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 swing states that helped give Biden
the win.
Trump claimed, despite the results, that this may not be
his last Thanksgiving at the White House. And he insisted there had
been “massive fraud,” even though state officials and international
observers have said no evidence of that exists and Trump’s campaign has
repeatedly failed in court.
Trump’s administration has already
given the green light for a formal transition to get underway. But 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.
And as he refused to concede, Trump announced that he will
be traveling to Georgia to rally supporters ahead of two Senate runoff
elections that will determine which party controls the Senate. Trump
said the rally for Republican Sens. David Perdue and Sen. Kelly Loeffler
would likely be held Saturday. The White House later clarified he had
meant 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 ahead of those runoffs on Jan. 5. But Trump, in his remarks,
openly questioned whether that election would be fair in a move that
could dampen Republican turnout.
“I think you’re dealing with a
very fraudulent system. I’m very worried about that,” he said. “People
are very disappointed that we were robbed.”
As for the Electoral
College, Trump made clear that he will likely never formally concede,
even if he said he would leave the White House.
“It’s gonna be a
very hard thing to concede. Because we know there was massive fraud,” he
said, noting that, “time isn’t on our side.”
“If they do,” vote against him, Trump added, “they’ve made a mistake.”
Asked whether he would attend Biden’s inauguration, Trump said he knew the answer but didn’t want to share it yet.
But there were some signs that Trump was coming to terms with his loss.
At
one point he urged reporters not to allow Biden the credit for pending
coronavirus vaccines. “Don’t let him take credit for the vaccines
because the vaccines were me and I pushed people harder than they’ve
ever been pushed before,” he said.
As for whether or not he plans
to formally declare his candidacy to run again in 2024 — as he has
discussed with aides— Trump he didn’t “want to talk about 2024 yet.”
All
states must certify their results before the Electoral College meets on
Dec. 14, and any challenge to the results must be resolved by Dec. 8.
State have already begun
that process, including Michigan, where Trump and his allies tried and
failed to delay the process, and Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Vote
certification at the local and state level is typically a ministerial
task that gets little notice, but that changed this year with Trump’s
refusal to concede and his unprecedented attempts to overturn the
results of the election through a fusillade of legal challenges and
attempts to manipulate the certification process in battleground states
he lost.
Biden won by wide margins in both the Electoral College and popular vote, where he received nearly 80 million votes, a record.