Pressure grows on Trump to go quietly
Bush calls election ‘fundamentally fair’ amid reports first family are urging concession
DONALD TRUMP was under mounting pressure to concede the US presidential race last night as George W Bush congratulated Joe Biden on his victory and said the election was “fundamentally fair”.
The former president became the most prominent Republican to draw a line under the election, saying he had called Mr Biden and Kamala Harris, the vice-president-elect, to offer his best wishes.
With the Trump campaign escalating calls for donations to fight legal challenges, multiple broadcasters reported that Melania Trump, the First Lady, was privately urging her husband to concede. Mrs Trump disputed the claims, t weeting: “The American people deserve fair elections. Every legal – not illegal – vote should be counted. We must protect our democracy with complete transparency.”
CNN also reported that Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, had pushed a similar message with the president, but that was flatly denied as “not true” by a senior Trump campaign figure.
The confused picture from the White House came as Mr Trump failed to make the customary call to a victorious presidential candidate, instead tweeting claims about election fraud.
The election was called by US media outlets for Mr Biden on Saturday morning after the Democrat pulled ahead in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania.
Mr Bush has previously avoided discussing Mr Trump and his policies in public. “The American people can have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair, its integrity will be upheld, and its outcome is clear,” Mr Bush said, contradicting Mr Trump’s unfounded claim the election was “stolen” from him.
Chris Christie, the Republican former New Jersey governor who has been friends with Mr Trump for 20 years, also urged the president to prove his claims or back down on the ABC television channel. Mr Christie summed up his message: “If your basis for not conceding is that there was voter fraud then show us, show us. Because if you can’t show us, we can’t do this. We can’t back you blindly without evidence.”
There has been a wave of congratulations for the president-elect from world leaders. Among them was Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who has a close relationship with Mr Trump.
Mr Biden, who was seen attending church yesterday in Wilmington, Delaware, is preparing to sweep away some of the most controversial Trump policies by executive order on his first day in office.
Mr Trump’s tweets yesterday indicated he was continuing to dispute the outcome. In one message he quoted Newt Gingrich, the former Republican congressman and loyalist, saying “this was a stolen election”. Twitter flagged the claim as “disputed”.
No evidence has been presented by the Trump campaign. Instead they have pointed to small irregularities, claimed their poll watchers did not have full access to monitor counts and complained about rules that allowed postal ballots date-stamped from before polls closed to arrive after election day.
Mr Trump also tweeted: “Since when does the Lamestream Media call who our next president will be? We have all learned a lot in the last two weeks!”
US media outlets call states for candidates when they believe the results are clear. The official result will be certified over the coming weeks.
Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, the president’s sons, yesterday continued to elevate allegations about electoral malpractice on their Twitter feeds. Mr Trump has said more legal action over the election is due today.