Donald Trump says it’s a ‘very hard thing to concede’ election

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President Donald Trump on Thursday said it’s ‘very hard thing to concede’ the election but admitted he would leave the White House when the time came if the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden.

He wouldn’t say if he would attend his rival’s inauguration. 

On Thanksgiving Day, the president took his first questions from the media since the election was held. 

‘It’s going to be a very hard thing to concede because we know there was massive fraud,’ Trump said at the White House.

The president said he would leave on Inauguration Day if the Electoral College voted for his rival.

‘Certainly I will. And you know that,’ Trump told reporters at the White House when asked if he’ll leave in order to ensure a peaceful transition of power. 

But he also warned it would be a ‘mistake’ for the Election College to elect Biden when they meet on December 14.  

‘If they do they made a mistake,’ the president said. 

Trump was combative in his tone during the media event and, at one point when questioned on why he would concede, he got visibly angry with a reporter, pointing his finger and saying: ‘I’m the president of the United States. Don’t ever talk to the president that way.’

In his 25 minute back-and-forth with the media, Trump didn’t fully concede his loss and insisted his legal arguments would go ahead. He argued he has time until the inauguration – which is 55 days away – but admitted it’s ticking fast.

He reiterated unproven conspiracy theories about voting machines changing votes for him to Biden, complained the election was ‘rigged’ and alleged Biden only got his record 80 million votes through ‘massive fraud.’ 

Trump is trying to over throw the election results by going to court in battleground states but his legal cases have been going no where. States are in the process of certifying their results and the electoral college meets in about two weeks to name the winner.

‘Time isn’t on our side,’ the president conceded. 

And when asked if he’d go to Biden’s inauguration on January 20th, Trump replied: ‘I don’t want to say that yet. I mean I know the answer, I’ll be honest, I know the answer, but I just don’t want to say it yet.’ 

He warned that ‘a lot of things happening between now and January 20th’ and the election results have a ‘long way’ to go.

His last hope could be January 6, 2020, which is when Congress meets to formally certify the results of the electoral college. 

But the transition process has already begun. The General Services Administration, led by a Trump appointee, announced this week that federal agencies and the Biden Transition Team could start communicating. The president elect is starting to name his cabinet.

In his remarks Thursday, Trump repeated a conspiracy theory pushed by members of his legal team that votes from Dominion Voting Systems machines lost votes for him or switched votes from him to Biden.

Dominion said there was no problem with their machines nor is there any evidence of what Trump alleges. 

‘We’re using computer equipment that can be hacked,’ the president complained about the election.

‘We’re like a third world country. We have machines that nobody knows what the hell they’re looking at. I mean you take a look at all the mistakes they made,’ he said. 

‘This election was a fraud, just so you understand this election was a fraud,’ he said. 

He said there was proof of what he was talking about on the internet.

‘If you look, just take a look anywhere on the internet. You will see many, many people where they’re experimenting with this stupid machinery. Wherever you send it a certain way the votes go from Trump to Biden,’ Trump said. 

And he challenged Biden’s vote tally. 

‘I know one thing Joe Biden did not get 80 million votes,’ he said.  ‘The only way he got 80 million votes is through massive fraud.’

The current tally of the popular votes stand at: 80,045,066 (51%) for Biden and 73,897,658 (47%) for Trump. Additionally, Biden has 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.

The president spoke to reporters after he made a Thanksgiving teleconference call with troops serving overseas.

‘You have to really take a look at what’s going on. They’re finding tremendous discrepancies in the votes, and nobody believes those numbers those numbers are incorrect numbers,’ he said of the vote tallies.

He provided no evidence of his claim. State officials have said they’ve found no evidence of election fraud in the November contest. 

‘I thought I was going to win it, and essentially I did win it. It’s very very close, it’s very very close,’ he said. 

The election results are not close. Biden has 306 electoral votes and only needs 270 to win the presidency.  

Trump played coy when asked about his own Thanksgiving plans for his last one at the White House, saying he ‘can’t say what’s first or last.’ He added that it might be the ‘first one of a second term.’ 

And he criticized Biden for moving ahead in forming a new government. 

‘I think it’s not right he’s trying to pick a Cabinet,’ Trump said of Biden.  

He also refused to talk about the next presidential contest, which associates have said he’s considering running in.

‘I don’t want to talk to 2024 yet,’ he said.

Specifically, Trump complained about results in states he won in 2016 but lost to Biden in November, specifically calling out Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia.

‘You will find tens of thousands of false ballots,’ he promised.

He alleged voters in Pennsylvania who tried to vote were told they already had, said he was winning in Wayne County in Michigan but then said canvassers wouldn’t certify for him, claimed there were ‘tremendous discrepancies’ in Wisconsin, and faulted Democrat Stacey Abrams for his loss in Georgia.

Trump accused Abrams, who worked on voter registration in Georgia, with harvesting votes. ‘Ballot harvesting’, as it’s called, is when a third party collects an individual’s legal vote and turns it into state officials. The practice is legal

‘You’re not allowed to harvest,’ Trump said.

He also railed against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who led a hand recount of the state that certified Biden’s win, an ‘enemy of the people.’

‘I understand the Secretary of State, who is really an enemy of the people, the Secretary of State, and whether it’s republican or not,’ Trump complained.

Georgia officials are doing another recount at Trump’s request.

Biden became the first Democrat to carry the state of Georgia since 1992 and many Democrats credited Abrams’ get-out-the-vote operation in the state for his victory there.

Trump is going to Georgia on Saturday, December 5, to campaign for Republican Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The two candidates are in a January 5th runoff election. Republicans need to win both seats in order to maintain their control of the Senate. 

The president said he spoke to them about his concerns about Georgia’s voting.

‘I told them today I said listen you have a fraudulent system, you have a system with the flick of a switch or the putting in a new chip can change the course of history,’ he said.

In Pennsylvania Trump’s his legal team is trying to stop certification of the state’s 20 electoral votes for Biden.

Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney who is leading the charge in trying to overturn the election, testified at a Republican-led hearing of sorts on Wednesday, which Trump called into to implore GOP officials in the state to find he won Pennsylvania.

‘This election has to be turned around. We won Pennsylvania by a lot and we won all of these swing states by a lot,’ Trump said via a cellphone his attorney Jenna Ellis held up to a microphone.

Trump also tried to subvert results in Michigan. He met with two state lawmakers at the White House to discuss the election.

But, despite his efforts, the two men said they haven’t seen any evidence that would change the fact that Biden won their state.

‘We have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan’s electors, just as we have said throughout this election,’ Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield said in a joint statement after their meeting with President Trump last week.

In Wisconsin, Republicans filed a lawsuit Tuesday asking the state Supreme Court to block certification of the presidential election results as a recount is ongoing. The state is supposed to certify its results on Tuesday, December 1.

Trump says COVID vaccines will start going out NEXT WEEK as he brags about his accomplishments in Thanksgiving call with U.S. troops

President Donald Trump spent time on his call with U.S. troops bragging about his own record, noting the record stock market high this week and claiming COVID vaccines will start being delivered in the next week or two.

At least three COVID vaccines show remarkable efficacy, a promising result as America sees more than 12.9 million infections and more than 263,000 deaths for the virus.  

The candidates are in Phase 3 clinical trials, the last step before seeking the go-ahead from the Food and Drug Administration.

Trump said distribution will begin soon with frontline workers and high risk populations.

‘We are rounding the curb,’ he said on a call with troops stationed overseas. ‘The vaccines are being delivered literally starting next week and week after, and the frontline workers and seniors and doctors, nurses, a lot of people going to start getting.’

The FDA is meeting Monday to talk to Pfizer about giving an emergency authorization for its vaccine to be used.  

Trump said the rapid development of the vaccine was a ‘medical miracle.’ 

‘Some people call that a medical miracle really a miracle. It could have taken four or five years to do this normally. It probably would have taken four or five years, just getting it through the FDA. We pushed it very hard,’ he said. 

Gen. Gustave Perna, who is leading Operation Warp Speed’s effort to distribute coronavirus vaccines nationwide, told ABC News that he believes the FDA’s authorization, which he calls ‘D-Day,’ could occur between Dec. 10 and Dec. 14. Once it’s authorized, he said, ’24 hours later, vaccines are on the street.’

Trump, in his overseas call, also bragged about Tuesday’s record achievement in the stock market: the Dow hit 30,000 points for the first time.

‘You’re doing an incredible job and your country is doing well. We just set a record in the stock market over 30,000 in the Dow Jones industrial average,’ he said. 

The president spoke with different members of service stationed around the world.

‘Don’t eat too much turkey,’ he told them.  

‘How is Kuwait doing,’ he said in his conversations with Army, Marine, and Air Force personnel stationed in Kuwait.

He also spoke with Navy service members on the USS Winston S Churchill in the Red Sea, members of the Space Force in Colorado and Coast Guard forces in the Kingdom of Bahrain. 

On the teleconference, all the service members wore face masks. Trump did not wear one. 

When one of the commanders thanked him for doing the call, saying it raised morale during the holiday, Trump replied: ”I love doing it and I’m so proud of it.’

He also said repeatedly the military is in better shape after his four years in the White House, claiming its equipment is in ‘tippy-top’ shape. 

‘Your equipment is getting newer and newer and better and better,’ he told crew members of the Churchill.

‘On the Army, we just made a tremendous purchase of equipment,’ he said.

And he praised one service man who said he was a golfer. The ‘only exercise there is,’ said the president who had played a round before speaking with them. 

The president spoke from the Diplomatic Room of the White House.