TRUMP MAY NOT ACCEPT DEFEAT
Postal voting will rig election: U.S. president
Donald Trump may not accept the results of the forthcoming presidential election, he has said, setting the stage for an epic showdown in November.
In a wild and contentious interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News, broadcast Sunday, the president said he was “not a good loser” and was fully prepared to challenge the results, if he lost to Joe Biden, his Democratic rival.
He claimed postal voting, which Democrats pushed as a response to the pandemic, “is going to rig the election.”
Asked if this meant that he would not accept the election results, Trump said: “No. I have to see.”
The interview comes as the 2020 campaign has been upended by the pandemic, which has claimed more than 137,000 lives in the United States. Most in-person events have been cancelled, and both political parties are planning to hold smaller-scale conventions to limit the spread of the virus.
Several states switched to primarily vote-by-mail primaries earlier this year, and the U.S. Postal Service is bracing for an onslaught of mail-in ballots this fall as states and cities seek alternatives to in-person voting.
Biden is currently 15 points ahead, according to an ABC News/washington Post poll released Sunday.
Among registered voters, Biden was 55 per cent to Trump’s 40 per cent. Fears have been mounting that the president could pull legal, governmental and political levers to remain in power if Biden fell short of a blowout victory.
Some predicted lawsuits over the increased use of postal ballots.
Others thought that Trump could misuse executive powers. Multiple people feared a social media post calling on his supporters to take to the streets.
Hillary Clinton last week said she was worried Trump would try to cling to power. “I think it’s a fair point to raise as to whether or not, if he loses, he’s going to go quietly or not, and we have to be ready for that,” Trump’s defeated 2016 opponent said.
Asked again Sunday if he would accept the result, Trump said: “No, I’m not going to just say ‘yes.’ I’m not going to say ‘no,’ and I didn’t last time either.” He said he hated conceding defeat. “I’m not a good loser. I don’t like to lose,” he said. “I don’t lose too often. I don’t like to lose.”
When asked if he is gracious, Trump said: “You don’t know until you see. It depends.”
Biden’s campaign responded to Trump’s remarks in a statement Sunday. “The American people will decide this election,” Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said. “And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”
Trump also played down the recent spike in U.S. coronavirus cases, arguing that “many of those cases shouldn’t even be cases.”
“Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day,” he claimed. “They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test.”
More than 20 states are reporting seven-day averages in coronavirus-related deaths higher than at the end of June.
Wallace pressed Trump on the issue, noting that there are currently about 6,000 cases in the entire European Union. “Is it possible that they don’t have the virus as badly as we do?” he asked.
“It’s possible that they don’t test, that’s what’s possible,” Trump replied. “We find cases, and many of those cases heal automatically.”
The president also defended his oft-made prediction that the virus will “disappear” one day.
“I’ll be right eventually,” he said. “I will be right eventually. You know I said, ‘It’s going to disappear.’ I’ll say it again . ... It’s going to disappear, and I’ll be right.”
But the mayor of Los Angeles warned Sunday that the city is “on the brink” of a return to lockdown, as cases in the United States surged.
As reports emerged that the White House was blocking chunks of a US$75 billion pandemic plan, Eric Garcetti, said a stay-at-home order would likely come at state or county level.