President Trump said Thursday that if the electoral college formalized Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s election as president, he would leave the White House, despite reiterating unsubstantiated allegations of fraud that would make it “very difficult” to admit.
For the first time since election day, Mr Trump took questions from reporters and threw himself into the battle for Senate control. He said he will be traveling to Georgia soon to support Republican candidates in two runoff elections scheduled there on Jan. 5.
When asked if he would step down in January after the electoral college cast their votes for Mr Biden as expected on December 14, Mr Trump replied, “Of course I will. Sure i will. “
Speaking to members of the American military in the White House diplomatic room after a Thanksgiving videoconference, the president insisted that “shocking” new evidence of electoral problems would emerge before inauguration day. “It will be very difficult to admit,” he said, “because we know there has been massive fraud.”
But even as he continued to deny the reality of his defeat, Mr Trump also seemed to acknowledge that his days as president were numbered.
“Time is not on our side,” he said in a rare admission of weakness. He also complained that what he prematurely referred to as “the Biden administration” had declared his intention to reject his “America First” foreign policy vision.
The president was also conspicuously irritated at one point, beating a reporter who interfered during one of several of his sweeping statements about the allegedly fraudulent elections.
“You’re just a lightweight,” snapped Mr. Trump, raising his voice and angrily pointing at a finger. “Do not speak to me that I am the President of the United States. Never talk to the president like that. “
Clearly, if Mr Trump sees the end of his presidency as inevitable, he still believes that he can bolster his legacy and seriously undermine Mr Biden, the man who ended it, by helping to maintain a Republican Senate that will serve as Wall could serve against the new democratic agenda.
According to the election results, the Democrats had 48 seats in the US Senate. When Jon Ossoff and Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic challenger in Georgia, able to claim victories over Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, her party will take de facto control of a 50:50 Senate because Vice President was elected Kamala Harris would have a groundbreaking vote submit.
In his remarks on Thursday, Mr Trump said he would visit Georgia on Saturday. Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, later clarified that the president meant Saturday, December 5th.
The president added that he could return to the state a second time to support the Republicans “depending on how they are.”
It’s unclear how helpful Mr. Trump’s performances would be to the two contested Republican incumbents. After handcounting a tight vote, Georgia declared Mr. Biden the winner there on November 19, by a margin of 12,284 votes. Mr Biden is the first Democrat to have the state promoted in a presidential election since Bill Clinton in 1992.
Mr Trump insisted on Thursday that he won the vote by a significant margin. “We were robbed. We were robbed, ”he said. “I won that with hundreds of thousands of votes. Everybody knows. “
When asked if he would attend Mr Biden’s inauguration, as is customary for an outgoing president, Mr Trump was shy.
“I don’t want to say that yet,” said the President, adding, “I know the answer, but I just don’t want to say it.”
At times, Mr Trump shifted his explanation of his defeat from fraud allegations to complaints that the political battlefield was against him, calling media and technology companies his enemies.
“If the media were honest and big tech was fair, it wouldn’t even be a competition,” he said. “And I would have won enormously.”
After Mr. Trump seemed to admit the reality, he quickly got himself backed up and revised his conditional statement.
“And I won tremendously,” he added.
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