Despite his pathway to victory narrowing with every passing hour, President Donald Trump has no plans to concede defeat as his Democratic rival Joe Biden inches close to reaching 270 electoral votes.
With vote totals showing him trailing Mr. Biden, the President has not prepared a concession speech and has no plans conceding the election. Chief of staff Mark Meadows has not spoken to Mr. Trump about the reality of him losing but instead has fed into his baseless claims of the election being stolen from him.
Vice President Mike Pence has not been seen since early Wednesday morning at the White House and has not been heard from publicly. Privately, he is working to get cash for the President’s legal defense fund.
Mr. Trump reportedly spent the morning watching television, angry more people were not defending him on the cable shows. Later in the afternoon, he released a statement and signaled he is going to fight this.
“This is no longer about any single election,” he said. “This is about the integrity of our entire election process,” he wrote. “We will pursue this process through every aspect of the law to guarantee the American people have confidence in our government. I will never give up fighting for you and our nation.”
The President is hoping a long court battle and corrosive rhetoric will help him stay in office, despite his refusal to accept the results. Meanwhile, Mr. Biden’s campaign did not express concern about the President’s hope to stay in office.
“As we said on July 19, the American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.
The Trump campaign released a statement of their own early Friday morning and made it clear it will refuse to concede the election, calling projections of Mr. Biden’s win “false”.
“This election is not over,” Trump campaign general counsel Matt Morgan said in a statement.
Before Friday, there was talk about the President running in 2024 as a joke but more Republicans are taking the idea more seriously if he loses the election to Mr. Biden. This makes it clear the idea of Trumpism and Mr. Trump’s hold on the GOP is something he will have for years to come.
Mr. Trump’s disdain for losing is nothing new. In an interview back over the summer, he told Fox News’ Chris Wallace he does not like to lose and he is not a gracious loser. Just last week, he told reporters at his campaign headquarters in Virginia something similar.
“Losing is never easy,” he said. “Not for me, it’s not.”
