Trump refuses to accept defeat: ‘This election is far from over’
Despite his loss being projected by all major networks, US president insists Biden is ‘rushing to falsely pose as the winner’
US President Donald Trump refused to concede defeat in the US presidential election Saturday night.
Trump said Joe Biden was “rushing to falsely pose as the winner” after television networks and other major outlets declared the Democrat’s victory.
“We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed,” Trump said.
“The simple fact is this election is far from over.”
Trump, who was playing golf in Virginia around the time US media outlets called the presidential election for Biden, underlined that states had not yet certified the results, and his campaign has launched multiple legal challenges.
“Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor,” he stated.
“Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated.”
Statement from President @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/vAXtVk4Ifn
— Team Trump (@TeamTrump) November 7, 2020
Near-complete results issued by each state showed an insurmountable lead for Biden, allowing network news channels to call the overall result, as they do every election.
Biden won the White House, US media said, as an insurmountable lead in Pennsylvania took Biden, 77, over the top in the state-by-state count that decides the presidency.
“America, I’m honored that you have chosen me to lead our great country,” Biden said in a statement.
“The work ahead of us will be hard, but I promise you this: I will be a president for all Americans — whether you voted for me or not. I will keep the faith that you have placed in me.”
For Biden, who got more than 74 million votes, a record, the triumph after a tense contest conducted during a global coronavirus pandemic was the crowning achievement of his half-century in US politics, including eight years as deputy to the first Black US president, Barack Obama.
The result condemned 74-year-old Trump — who made frantic attempts to claim fraud and stop the vote count — to becoming the first one-term president since George H. W. Bush at the start of the 1990s.
The Republican’s marathon press conferences, tweeting and raucous campaign rallies have made him a perpetual, noisy presence at home and abroad over the last four years.
But ever since the night after Tuesday’s election, when he prematurely claimed victory, Trump has been inhabiting a world increasingly disconnected from the reality of his approaching downfall.
Earlier Saturday, he left the White House for the first time since Election Day to play golf, tweeting: “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!”
And in an extraordinary White House address to the nation on Thursday — with Biden’s lead in the partial results already consolidating rapidly — he claimed “they are trying to steal the election.”
Despite Trump’s protests, the returns from vote counting offices around the country kept coming all week, with no credible reports of irregularities.
And when US television networks declared that Biden had taken an insurmountable lead in Pennsylvania, that put the Democrat over the magic number of 270 electoral college votes. Trump had no way back.
