US election: Team Trump plans ‘recount rallies’
Donald Trump and his team are reportedly planning to keep holding rallies to promote his election accusations despite Joe Biden’s victory.
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Donald Trump and his team are reportedly planning to keep holding rallies to promote his unsupported election questions.
According to CNN, campaign-style “recount rallies” would focus on legal action threatened by the President’s team.
This is despite the fact that Joe Biden has been named as the President-elect, and that recounts are not expected to change the outcome of the election.
Earlier, MR Trump has confused the world after his new tweet suggested he may give a TV interview after losing the US election to Joe Biden.
The US President tweeted: “Watch @marklevinshow at 8:00 P.M. Will discuss the Mail-In Ballot Hoax!”
Watch @marklevinshow at 8:00 P.M. Will discuss the Mail-In Ballot Hoax!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 8, 2020
It gave the impression he was going to give the interview, but he didn’t appear on Fox News.
Mr Trump’s claims have not been proven with any evidence.
While establishment Republicans such as former president George W Bush and Mitt Romney swung behind Joe Biden as 46th president, other senior party figures stood up for Mr Trump’s controversial legal strategy.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged patience as the count continued and challenges mounted and Senator Lindsey Graham said Mr Trump should “fight hard”.
“We will work with Biden if he wins, but Trump has not lost,” Mr Graham said.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz said Mr Biden’s victory had been “way premature”.
“I believe President Trump still has a path to victory,” Mr Cruz said.
“And that path is to count every single legal vote that was cast, but also not to (count) any votes that were fraudulently passed or illegally cast, and we have a legal process to determine what’s legal and what isn’t.”
And First Lady Melania Trump weighed in for the first time, knocking down reports that she was urging her husband to step down.
“The American people deserve fair elections,” she tweeted.
“Every legal – not illegal – vote should be counted. We must protect our democracy with complete transparency.”
The American people deserve fair elections. Every legal - not illegal - vote should be counted. We must protect our democracy with complete transparency.
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) November 8, 2020
BUSH CONGRATULATES BIDEN
George W. Bush offered his “warm congratulations” to the President-elect, calling the Democrat “a good man, who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country.”
The two-term Republican, in a statement issued by his presidential centre in Dallas, also congratulated loser Mr Trump for his “extraordinary political achievement” in winning 70 million votes.
Mr Bush’s statement made him one of the country’s most prominent Republicans to acknowledge Biden’s victory, declared Saturday, and offer him congratulations.
His brother Jeb Bush — the former Florida governor who had himself aspired to the presidency until Trump grabbed the party’s nomination in 2016 — earlier sent Mr Biden his own congrats.
“I will be praying for you and your success. Now is the time to heal deep wounds. Many are counting on you to lead the way.”
Republican senators Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have also extended congratulations to Mr Biden, while many other Republican officials are calling that premature, saying not all votes have yet been counted and not all challenges resolved.
Mr Bush agreed that Trump had “the right to request recounts and pursue legal challenges.” But he added: “The American people can have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair, its integrity will be upheld, and its outcome is clear.” Sounding a message of unity that echoed Mr Biden’s own words, Bush added: “We must come together for the sake of our families and neighbours, and for our nation and its future.
Statement by President George W. Bush: https://t.co/Bsbv8k1nho pic.twitter.com/O7CLtEvxk0
— George W. Bush Presidential Center (@TheBushCenter) November 8, 2020
“There is no problem that will not yield to the gathered will of a free people.”
And one of Mr Trump’s Republican political foes warned that he was unlikely to go “quietly in the night” and would only accept a legal outcome to his electoral challenges that favoured the president.
“You’re not going to change the nature of President Trump … He is who he is. He has a relatively relaxed relationship with the truth,” said Utah Senator Mitt Romney on Sunday morning, local time.
“I’m convinced that once all remedies have been exhausted, if those are exhausted in a way that’s not favourable to him, he will accept the inevitable.
“But don’t expect him to go quietly in the night. That’s not how he operates.
“I would prefer to see a more graceful departure but that’s just not in the nature of the man.”
It comes as Mr Biden visited church and the graves of his late son, daughter and wife early Sunday as a defiant Mr Trump headed back to the golf course.
TRUMP FAMILY WANTS HIM TO CONCEDE
Mr Trump again claimed the election was stolen and that he would fight the result, as members of his inner circle were reported to be urging him to accept defeat.
After a night when the White House was surrounded by a raucous victory party for Mr Biden, he was greeted at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia about 10am by a clutch of protesters.
“ORANGE CRUSHED,” said one sign, while another said “TRUMPTY DUMPTY HAD A GREAT FALL”.
Son-in-law Jared Kushner is reported to have tried to talk Mr Trump down from his determination to challenge the legitimacy of thousands of votes for his rival.
But Mr Trump appears to not want to hear pleas for concession, calling election officials running the count in Democrat-run cities “thieves”.
“The big city machines are corrupt. This was a stolen election. Best pollster in Britain wrote this morning that this clearly was a stolen election, that it’s impossible to imagine that Biden outran Obama in some of these states,” he tweeted Sunday morning, local time.
“We should look at the votes. We’re just beginning the tabulation stage. We should look at these allegations. We’re seeing a number of affidavits that there has been voter fraud. We have a history in this country of election problems.”
BIDEN PROMISES TO ACT ‘FOR ALL AMERICANS’
Mr Biden promised to be a leader for all Americans in an uplifting victory speech as cities across the country erupted into spontaneous street parties to celebrate his win.
Mr Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris both sought to unify the divided country in their addresses before a crowd of a thousand supporters in Delaware, who sat in and on their cars to watch.
Mr Biden, 77, will be the oldest US president, while Ms Harris is the first female vice president, and the first black woman and East Asian woman on a presidential ticket.
In his 15-minute speech, Mr Biden said Americans had chosen unity, joy and faith over the chaos of the past four years.
“I sought this office to restore the soul of America and to make America respected around the world again and to unite us here at home,” he said to honks and cheers from the crowd.
Mr Biden said his first priority was to unite a deeply divided nation struggling with social unrest, the pandemic and a tanking economy.
“I pledge to be a president who does not seek to divide, but unify, who doesn’t see red states and blue states, but only sees the United States,” he said.
Mr Trump has not conceded and his lawyers have prepared more than a dozen legal challenges in which they allege wrongdoings ranging from voter fraud to corrupt ballot counters.
He was golfing when the election was called after almost four days of counting.
He responded with a series of furious tweets.
“I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!,” he said, saying that his 71 million votes were legal but that the Democrat contender’s weren’t.
The bitter 45th president faces increasing calls to step down graciously to ensure his legacy and any chance of a 2024 run, but all indications are that he is settling in for a fight.
Ms Harris, 55, introduced Mr Biden in Delaware with a resounding speech that acknowledged his role in making history with his appointment of her.
“While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last, because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a county of possibilities,” she said.
“To the children of our country, regardless of your gender, your country has sent you a clear message.
“Dream with ambition, lead with conviction and see yourselves in a way that others may not, simply because they’d never seen it before.”
She said she would work for all “American people, no matter how you voted”.
“I will strive to be a Vice President like Joe was to President Obama. Loyal, honest and prepared, waking up every day thinking of you and your family, because now is when the real work begins,” she said.
“Joe is a healer, a uniter, a tested and steady hand, a person whose own experience of loss gives him a sense of purpose that will help us as a nation reclaim our own sense of purpose and man with a big heart who loves with abandon.”
She also praised the 74 million Americans who had turned out to vote for Mr Biden.
“Thank you for turning out in record numbers to make your voices heard,” she said.
“And I know times have been challenging. Especially the last several months.
“The grief, sorrow and pain. The worries and the struggles. But we have also witnessed your courage, your resilience, and the generosity of your spirit.
“For four years, you marched and organised for equality and justice. For our lives, and for our planet.
“And then you voted, and you delivered a clear message.
“You chose hope and unity, decency, science. And yes, truth.”
Mr Biden said his priorities after Inauguration Day next January 20 would be handling the pandemic, healing racial inequality and fixing the shattered economy.
But before then he urged a peaceful transition of power.
“Let this grim era of demonisation in America begin to end — here and now,” he said.
“The refusal of Democrats and Republicans to co-operate with one another is not due to some mysterious force beyond our control.
“It’s a decision. It’s a choice we make.
“And if we can decide not to co-operate, then we can decide to co-operate. And I believe that this is part of the mandate from the American people. They want us to co-operate.
“We have to stop treating our opponents as enemies. They are not our enemies, they are Americans.
“It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric and see each other again.”
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