President Donald Trump refused to concede the results of the 2020 presidential election late Saturday morning.
Several media organizations, including CNN, the Associated Press, and Fox News, called the election for Joe Biden just after 11:30 a.m. EST. The sitting president expressed his strenuous disagreement some 20 minutes later in a statement posted to Twitter.
“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,” the 45th president alleged. “The simple fact is this election is far from over.”
“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,” Trump’s statement continued. “In Pennsylvania, for example, our legal observers were not permitted meaningful access to watch the counting process. Legal votes decide who is president, not the news media.”
As Law&Crime previously reported, the president’s reelection campaign has made the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania something akin to ground zero for their legal efforts aimed at salvaging the election results in their favor.
Suing in both state and federal court, those legal efforts in the Keystone State hinge upon the campaign’s claims that their observers have been denied increased access to canvassing of ballots. The Trumpworld effort here has been twofold so far: (1) fighting for more access in court and complaining that court orders are being ignored by the Democrats; (2) questioning why their opponents are fighting those orders and why they had to even sue in the first place.
While the campaign has had limited success on the courtroom front, those decisions have simply been technical wins lacking any impact on vote numbers whatsoever — thus far. And the president’s rhetorical strategy of amplifying those relatively minor grievances is being increasingly criticized.
Trump’s statement, however, echoed both of those currents in the last-ditch campaign to secure a fortunate political fortune.
“Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated,” the president said. “The American People are entitled to an honest election: that means counting all legal ballots, and not counting any illegal ballots. This is the only way to ensure the public has full confidence in our election.”
Trump also took the opportunity to lay into his apparently victorious opponent — in an apparent effort to connect the Democrat’s campaign to some sort of broad and vague conspiracy regarding electoral fraud. The president did not provide any evidence for those assertions.
“It remains shocking that the Biden campaign refuses to agree with this basic principle and wants ballots counted even if they are fraudulent, manufactured, or cast by ineligible or deceased voters,” Trump alleged. “Only a party engaged in wrongdoing would unlawfully keep observers out of the count room — and then fight in court to block their access.”
“So what is Biden hiding?” the reportedly defeated president’s initial response to his likely downfall concluded. “I will not rest until the American People have the honest vote count they deserve and that Democracy demands.”
[image via Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images]
