Inching toward exit, Trump says he’ll leave

But US leader fudges on concession in abiding by Electoral College vote

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump said on T hursday that he will leave the White House if the Elec toral College formalizes Presidentelect Joe Biden’s victory — even as he insisted such a decision would be a “mistake”.

Trump made the comments as he spent his T hanksgiving rene wing baseless claims that “massive fraud” and crooked officials in battleground states caused his defeat.

“Certainly I will. But you know that,” T rump said when ask ed whether he would vacate the building, allowing a peaceful transition of power in January. But the Republican president — taking questions for the first time since the elec tion on N ov 3 — insisted that “a lot of things” would happen between now and then that might alter the results.

“This has a long wa y to go, ” Trump said, even though he lost.

The fact that a sit ting president even had to address whe ther he would leave office after losing a reelection bid underscores the e xtent to which Trump has smashed one convention af ter another over the past three weeks. While there is no evidence of the kind of widespread fraud that T rump has been alleging, he and his legal team ha ve nonetheless been working to cast doubt on the integrit y of the elec tion and trying to overturn the voters’ will in an unprecedented breach of democratic norms.

Trump spoke to reporters in the White H ouse’s ornate Diplomatic Reception Room af ter holding a teleconference with U S militar y leaders stationed across the globe. He thanked them for their service and jokingly warned them not to eat too much turk ey, then turned to the elec tion af ter ending the call. H e repeated grie vances and angrily denounced of ficials in Georgia and Pennsylvania, two key swing states that helped give Biden, a Democrat, the win.

Trump claimed, despite the results, that this ma y not be his last T hanksgiving at the White

House. And he insisted there had been “massive fraud”, even though state officials and foreign obser vers have said no e vidence 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 of ficials from both teams are already working together to get Biden’s team up to speed.

And as he refused to concede, Trump said he will go to Georgia to rally supporters ahead of two Senate elec tions that will de termine which party controls the Senate.

As for the Elec toral College, Trump made clear that he will likely ne ver formally concede, e ven if he said he would lea ve the White House. “It ’s gonna be a ver y hard thing to concede. Because we know there was massive fraud,” he said, noting that “time isn’t on our side”.

Bid for 2024?

Asked whether he would attend Biden’s inauguration, T rump said he kne w the answer but didn ’t want to share it yet.

As for whe ther he plans to formally declare his candidacy to run again in 2024, as he has discussed with aides, T rump said he didn ’t “want to talk about 2024 yet”.

All states must cer tify their results before the Electoral College meets on Dec 14, and any challenge to the results must be resolved by Dec 8. States ha ve already begun that process, including M ichigan, where Trump and his allies tried and failed to delay the process, and Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Biden won by wide margins in both the Elec toral College and popular vote, where he received nearly 80 million votes, a record, according to major media outlets.