‘Time will tell’: Trump comes closest yet to admitting election defeat

US President Donald Trump came close but stopped just short on Friday of acknowledging he lost the November 3 election to Democrat Joe Biden and said “time will tell” who will head the next administration.

Trump, who has repeatedly refused to concede he lost the election, was speaking at a briefing at the White House on the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Ideally we won’t go to a lockdown,” he said. “I will not go. This administration will not be going to a lockdown.

“Hopefully, the, the whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration it will be, I guess time will tell but I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown,” Trump said.

Trump then stood by while several other speakers addressed the administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic which has left over 243,000 Americans dead.

Trump then left the event in the White House Rose Garden without responding to reporters who were shouting questions such as, “When will you admit you lost the election, sir?”

The remarks were Trump’s first, besides on Twitter, since November 5, when he falsely claimed to have won the election and said the vote was “rigged” against him.

US networks projected on Friday that Biden won the state of Georgia, giving him 306 votes in the Electoral College that determines the White House winner. Trump finished with 232.