Hours after Mr Trump’s allegations, Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, was alarmed by the comments on Twitter. “The peaceful transfer of power is fundamental to democracy. without that there is Belarus, ”wrote Romney. “Any suggestion that a president does not respect this constitutional guarantee is both unthinkable and unacceptable.”
Mr. Trump’s remarks are a continuation of a long series. During an interview with Fox News in July, Mr. Trump was also reluctant to be urged by the network’s anchor Chris Wallace to give “a direct answer” on whether he would accept the election results regardless of the outcome.
“I have to see,” said Mr. Trump. “No, I won’t just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and it won’t be the last time I did it, ”he added, referring to his similar pre-election ambiguity, which he warned could be stolen from him.
Even after his election that year, Mr Trump falsely insisted that he only lost the referendum because millions of immigrants who were not eligible to vote had cast ballots for his opponent Hillary Clinton.
In that campaign, Mr. Trump prepared his supporters to believe that his defeat would only be possible through what he described as “rigged” or “stolen”. “The only way we can take this choice away from us is if it is a rigged election,” Trump said last month during the Republican National Convention.
Mr Trump has also long joked about retaining power beyond legal limits, frequently mentioning that he will serve beyond January 2025 when the constitution – restricting presidents to two terms – requires him to leave office.
In 2018, after China’s Communist Party announced the end of a two-term term, Trump said at a closed-door fundraiser that China’s authoritarian leader Xi Jinping would be “president for life.”
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