White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany sought to allay concerns that President Trump may not cede power if he loses on Election Day, telling reporters that he would accept the results of an election that is “free and fair.”
“The president will accept the results of a free and fair election,” McEnany said during a White House news briefing Thursday. “He will accept the will of the American people.”
Concerns that the president would challenge the results of the election were ignited on Wednesday when Trump would not “commit” to a “peaceful transfer of power,” declining to answer a reporter’s question clearly during a White House news conference.
Trump pointed instead to mail-in ballots, which he has argued are susceptible to fraud and predicted the election would be decided by the Supreme Court.
For this reason, he said, filling the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s seat before the election is important.
Trump previously said that if he loses, the election will have been “rigged,” including at a rally in August when he told supporters that “the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.”
Republicans condemned the idea that the president would refuse to leave office following the results of an election.
Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, Trump said he would accept a Supreme Court ruling that declared Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden the winner, but he also pointed to what he called a “horror show” of ballot-related issues, such as the Trump ballots he said were found inside a garbage can.
“That’s emblematic of thousands of locations, perhaps,” he added.
“If I say, ‘Well, I want the ballots to be fair,’ they make a big deal out of it,” he said, citing a double standard as 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton instructed Biden not to “concede under any circumstance.”
In the briefing, McEnany told reporters that she would provide proof that mail-in ballots for the president had been discarded in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state where Trump secured a narrow 0.72% victory against Clinton in 2016.
“I can confirm for you that Trump ballots, ballots for the president, were found in Pennsylvania, and I believe we should be getting more information on that shortly,” McEnany said.
Asked again if Trump would accept the results of a free and fair election that he loses, McEnany said, “I’ve answered your question. He will accept the results of a free and fair election.”
