Trump still refuses to accept election loss
President Donald Trump signaled over the weekend that he will continue to challenge the results of the 2020 election, even as his legal options have all fizzled out the Electoral College prepares to cast its votes.
In a Fox News interview that aired Sunday morning, Mr. Trump repeated his false claims of election fraud and of victories in states he lost, including Pennsylvania.
He said his legal team will keep pursuing challenges, despite the Supreme Court’s succinct dismissal of a longshot bid led by the Texas attorney general to overturn the results in four states that President-elect Joe Biden won.
“No, it’s not over,” Mr. Trump told host Brian Kilmeade in the interview, which was taped Saturday at the Army- Navy football game at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
“We keep going, and we’re going to continue to go forward,” the president said. “We have numerous local cases. We’re, you know, in some of the states that got rigged and robbed from us. We won every one of them. We won Pennsylvania. We won Michigan. We won Georgia by a lot.”
Mr. Trump lost those swing states and others to Mr. Biden, who won 306 electoral votes to Mr. Trump’s 232.
Attorney General William Barr, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, said earlier this month that he has “not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election” — undercutting Mr. Trump’s claims of widespread and significant voting irregularities, and infuriating the president.
Nonetheless, the president has continued to make unfounded accusations of fraud,
calling the election “a sham and a shame” and dismissing concerns that his actions are driving Americans further apart.
“No,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Kilmeade when asked whether he shares those concerns. “I worry about the country having an illegitimate president. That’s what I worry about: a president that lost, and lost badly. This wasn’t, like, a close election. ... I didn’t lose. The election was rigged.”
Mr. Kilmeade noted that the Electoral College will meet Monday and that the ballots will then be transmitted to Congress, which will officially count the votes on Jan. 6. Asked how that process affects his chances for successfully challenging the results, Mr. Trump demurred.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’re going to speed it up as much as we can, but you can only go so fast. They give us
very little time.”
Asked whether he plans to attend Mr. Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, Mr. Trump declined to say.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” he said.
Among the Republicans who have urged Mr. Trump to concede is former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who Sunday sharply criticized the president’s continuing efforts to overturn the election results.
“The reason the Supreme Court is not taking this is not because of a lack of courage,” Mr. Christie said on ABC News’s “This Week.” “It’s for the same reason that every court has thrown this out: It’s a lack of evidence and a lack of any type of legal theory that makes any sense.”
Sen. Lamar Alexander, RTenn., who is retiring at the end of the year, said there should not be any doubt after Monday about who won the presidential election.
“I mean, the states have counted, certified their votes,” Mr. Alexander said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “The courts have resolved the disputes. It looks very much like the electors will vote for Joe Biden. And when they do, I hope that he puts the country first — I mean, the president — that he takes pride in his considerable accomplishments, that he congratulates the president-elect and he helps him get off to a good start, especially in the middle of this pandemic.”
Meanwhile, groups of Trump supporters tore down a Black Lives Matter banner and sign from historic Black churches in Washington and set one ablaze as clashes Saturday with counterdemonstrators erupted into violence and arrests.
Police on Sunday said they were investigating the incidents at the Asbury United Methodist Church and
Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church as potential hate crimes, which one religious leader likened to a cross burning.
“This weekend, we saw forces of hate seeking to use destruction and intimidation to tear us apart,” District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser said Sunday. “We will not let that happen.”
A video posted on Twitter showed a group of men appearing to take down a Black Lives Matter banner at the Metropolitan AME Church as others in the crowd shout, “Whose streets? Our streets.”
Another video showed people pouring an accelerant on a similar banner and setting it ablaze in the street as others cheered and cursed antifa. Someone walks up about a minute later and uses a fire extinguisher to put out the flames.
“It pained me especially to see our name, Asbury, in flames,” said the Rev. Dr. Ianther M. Mills, the senior pastor at Asbury church, in a statement Sunday. “For me it was reminiscent of cross burnings. Seeing this act on video made me both indigent and determined to fight the evil that has reared its ugly head.”
“We will move forward, undaunted in our assurance that Black Lives Matter and we are obligated to continue to shout that truth without ceasing,” she added.
The incidents came following rallies in support of Mr. Trump’s baseless claims that he won a second term, which also led to dozens of arrests, several stabbings and injuries to police officers.
District police said they arrested nearly 30 people for a variety of offenses, from assault to weapons possession and resisting arrests and rioting. The violence broke out after sundown Saturday.
Four men were stabbed around 10 p.m. after a fight downtown, police said.