US President Donald Trump, who had refused to concede defeat in the recently-held presidential elections despite an overwhelming defeat in both electoral college and the popular vote, on Sunday appeared for the first time to acknowledge his Democratic rival Joe Biden’s victory but reiterated his allegations of fraudulent voting.
Refusing to refer to Biden by name, he tweeted: “He won because the Election was Rigged. NO VOTE WATCHERS OR OBSERVERS allowed, vote tabulated by a Radical Left privately owned company, Dominion, with a bad reputation & bum equipment that couldn’t even qualify for Texas (which I won by a lot!), the Fake & Silent Media, & more!”
Subsequently, he seemed to qualify his acknowledgment of Biden’s victory. “He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!” he tweeted. Both tweets were flagged by Twitter as “disputed”.
Speaking on the NBC program “Meet the Press,” Biden’s pick for White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, said, “Donald Trump’s Twitter feed doesn’t make Joe Biden president or not president. The American people did that.”
The Trump team has launched a slew of lawsuits disputing the results in several key states like Michigan and the all important Pennsylvania, but has been unsuccessful in many of them, while withdrawing their case in Arizona, which also went Democratic for the first time in decades.
Election officials of both parties have said there is no evidence of major irregularities. Democrats and other critics have accused Trump of trying to delegitimize Biden’s victory and undermine public confidence in the American electoral process. Before the election, Trump had refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
Trump’s refusal to concede did not change the fact that Biden was the president-elect, but it has stalled the government’s normal process of preparing for a new presidential administration.
The Trump administration’s decision not to recognize Biden as the winner has prevented Biden and his team from gaining access to government office space and to funding normally afforded to an incoming administration to ensure a smooth transition.
The federal agency in charge of providing those resources, the General Services Administration, has yet to recognize Biden’s victory.
According to the US media projections, Biden has won 306 of the 538 Electoral College votes, and has a five million plus lead in the popular vote.