Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine said on Thursday that Donald Trump is trying to destroy a “central pillar” of American democracy by refusing to say he’d concede to Hillary Clinton if she wins the White House.
“A central pillar of our democracy is accepting the results of an election and peaceful transfer of power. After running a campaign that insults virtually every group possible, now Donald Trump is trying to pull the central pillar down,” Kaine told MSNBC. “And that was very revealing of a guy who just can’t take responsibility for his own failures.”
Kaine explained that Trump’s refusal to accept the election’s outcome would not have been nearly as big of a deal if the GOP nominee had not been claiming the election will be rigged.
“If all Donald Trump had said was “we’ll wait and see,” and he hadn’t been for weeks talking about the fact that the election was rigged, challenging the ability of America to produce a sound democratic election, then it wouldn’t have been a big story,” Kaine told MSNBC. “But the fact that he’s been pushing this notion that if he loses, it’s because things have got to be rigged against him, that’s why the moment was so powerful.”
Kaine is campaigning in North Carolina on Thursday, as early voting gets underway.
