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By Reuters 
3h ago
Jeff Mason and Simon Lewis
Washington / Rehoboth Beach, Delaware – President Donald Trump said Thursday he will leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden, the closest he has come to granting the November 3 election, even as he repeated claims unfounded mass electoral fraud.
Speaking to reporters on the Thanksgiving holiday, Republican Trump said that if Democrat Biden, who is due to be sworn in on January 20, is officially declared the winner by the Electoral College, he will leave the White House.
When asked if he would leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for Biden, Trump said: “I certainly will. I certainly will. And you know it.”
But Trump said it would be difficult for him to give in because “we know there was massive fraud.”
“It was a rigged election … at the highest level,” Trump insisted in a sometimes rambling speech at the White House, offering no concrete evidence of widespread electoral irregularities.
It was the first time Trump answered questions from reporters since Election Day, and at times he turned combative.
In the United States, a candidate becomes president by obtaining the most “electoral” votes rather than by winning the majority of the national popular vote. Voters, assigned to all 50 states and the District of Columbia largely based on their population, are party loyalists who pledge to support the candidate who won the popular vote in their state.
Biden won the election with 306 Electoral College votes, many more than the 270 required, compared to 232 for Trump, and voters are scheduled to meet Dec. 14 to formalize the result. Biden also leads Trump by more than 6 million in the popular vote count.
So far, Trump has refused to fully acknowledge his defeat, though earlier this week, with mounting pressure from his own Republican ranks, he agreed to let Biden’s transition process officially proceed.
Frenzied efforts by Trump and his advisers to overturn the results in key states, whether through lawsuits or pressuring state lawmakers, have failed and he is running out of options.
President-elect Biden won 306 electoral votes. States continue to certify those results, the Electoral College will soon meet to ratify that result, “said Michael Gwin, spokesman for the Biden campaign, when asked about Trump’s comments.” Biden will be sworn in as president on January 20, 2021. “
Demonstrating that he intends to remain in the political fray until the end of his term, Trump said Thursday that he would travel Dec. 5 to Georgia, a once solidly Republican state that narrowly lost to Biden, to make campaign for two Republican candidates for the United States Senate. .
The two runoff elections in Georgia on January 5 will determine whether Republicans maintain their majority in the Senate.
“I just want to say to my people: don’t be disappointed just yet because this race is far from over,” Trump said.
Biden and Trump stayed close to home to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday as the coronavirus pandemic swept across the country.
Biden vacationed in the small seaside town of Rehoboth, Delaware, where he and his wife Jill have a vacation home. The Bidens will host their daughter Ashley Biden and her husband, Dr. Howard Kerin, for the holiday meal.
The former vice president, who appeared with his wife in a video message posted to his Twitter account on Thanksgiving, said his family usually holds a large gathering on Nantucket Island, off Massachusetts, but would remain in Delaware. this year “with only a small group. around our table” because of the pandemic.
In a presidential-style address to a nation that has lost more than 260,000 lives to the coronavirus, the Democratic president-elect said on Wednesday that Americans were making a “sacrifice shared by the entire country” and a “declaration of common purpose” to the stay home with immediate family members.
“I know this is not the way many of us expected our vacations to be spent. We know that a little act of staying home is a gift to our compatriots,” Biden said. “I know better days are coming.”
Trump often likes to celebrate the holidays at his Mar-a-Largo resort in Florida. But on Thursday he remained in the Washington area, spending part of the morning at his Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, where he played a round of golf.
It was very different from last year when he made a surprise visit to Afghanistan, where he served turkey to American troops before sitting down to dinner with them on Thanksgiving.
This time, Trump spoke via video link from the White House to members of the military at home and abroad.
Unlike Biden, who pleaded with Americans to celebrate the holiday safely with the use of masks and social distancing, Trump, in his Thanksgiving proclamation on Wednesday, urged Americans to “come together” for the holiday. .
On Thursday, the president tweeted “HAPPY THANKSGIVING!” in response to the US Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday night to prevent New York state from imposing limits on attendance at religious services. Governor Andrew Cuomo dismissed the ruling as “irrelevant” and said it referred to specific areas that were no longer considered high risk.
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