In a post-Thanksgiving Twitter storm riddled with more allegations of voter fraud, President Trump distanced himself from his Thanksgiving Day statement that he would “certainly” concede if he failed to win the Electoral College, calling President-elect Joe Biden’s more than 6 million-vote lead “ridiculous.”
“Biden can only enter the White House as President if he can prove that his ridiculous ‘80,000,000 votes’ were not fraudulently or illegally obtained,” the outgoing president tweeted. “When you see what happened in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia & Milwaukee, massive voter fraud, he’s got a big unsolvable problem!”
Biden can only enter the White House as President if he can prove that his ridiculous “80,000,000 votes” were not fraudulently or illegally obtained. When you see what happened in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia & Milwaukee, massive voter fraud, he’s got a big unsolvable problem!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2020
According to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, Biden has so far garnered more than 80 million votes. Trump is just shy of 74 million. Both, however, are record-breaking vote totals — far outstripping former President Barack Obama’s more than 69 million votes in 2008, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Speaking with reporters after a Thanksgiving Day teleconference call with members of the military, Trump said that he would “certainly” leave if the Electoral College elects Biden, who is projected to earn 306 votes from the college, a reversal of Trump’s self-professed “landslide” 2016 victory.
“It’s going to be a very hard thing to concede,” Trump said. He added that “if they do, they made a mistake.”
Electors must send their votes in by Dec. 14, but if Biden is declared the winner by the “safe harbor” date of Dec. 8, six days before the due date, Congress can acknowledge Biden as the country’s next president.
The Trump campaign is fighting a number of legal battles to overturn the outcome of the election. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani insists that his legal team has a “mountain of evidence” proving widespread voter fraud swung the election in Biden’s favor. Sidney Powell, a lawyer for former national security adviser Michael Flynn who has appeared with Giuliani at events but “is not a member of the Trump Legal Team,” also filed typo-riddled lawsuits in Georgia and Michigan alleging mass voter fraud.
Inauguration Day is scheduled for Jan. 20. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, it is unclear how the event will take place.
