Donald Trump attends “National Day of Observance” wreath-laying ceremony on November 11
Washington, United States:
US President Donald Trump made his first official post-election appearance on Wednesday in what should have been a moment of national unity to mark Veterans Day, now clouded by his refusal to acknowledge Joe’s victory. Biden.
On a rainy and gray day in Washington, the president visited Arlington National Cemetery for a grim wreath-laying ceremony shortly before 11:30 a.m., four days after the American media projected that his Democratic rival would take the White House.
Since then, he has not addressed the nation other than via Twitter and a statement issued to commemorate Veterans Day, and has failed to award Biden, as is traditional once a winner is projected in an American vote. .
With Covid-19 cases breaking records across the country and states imposing new restrictions in an effort to contain the virus before winter arrives, Trump appears to have sidelined normal presidential duties, barring his brief appearance in Arlington. , where he made no public comment. .
Instead, he has remained locked inside the presidential mansion, pushing an alternate reality that he is about to win and filing lawsuits alleging voter fraud that have so far been supported only by the flimsiest of evidence.
Early Wednesday morning he was tweeting new claims with no evidence of election victories and ballot tampering, despite the consensus of international observers, world leaders, local election officials, and US media that the November 3 vote was free and fair, and that there are no credible allegations of fraud.
Claiming that a poll in Wisconsin on Election Day had resulted in “possibly an illegal crackdown,” he said he was “now preparing to win the state,” which was called for Biden a week ago.
“Many of those ‘deplorable’ cases!” he added on Twitter.
Some Republicans were adding their voices to growing calls for the president to back down, and experts warned that his refusal to do so was undermining the democratic process and delaying the transition to Biden, who will take office in January.
Among them was Montana Republican Secretary of State Corey Stapleton, who announced the “incredible things” that Trump accomplished in office.
“But that time is over. Take off your hat, bite your lip and congratulate @JoeBiden,” he tweeted.
“Shame”
Yet some of the GOP’s most powerful figures, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, appear to back Trump in his attempt to undermine Biden’s victory.
“There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” Pompeo said at a sometimes irritable press conference Tuesday, while McConnell said the president was “100 percent within his rights” to challenge the election in court. .
Neither lawsuit appears to have the potential to change the outcome of the votes, and even a planned recount of Biden’s victory in Georgia, or anywhere else, is unlikely to change fundamental mathematics.
“I just think it’s a shame, frankly,” Biden said Tuesday, when asked what he thought about the president’s refusal to concede defeat.
But otherwise, he has largely ignored Trump, indicating that despite the Republican’s attempts to hinder his transition to power, he was increasingly a president on hold.
Biden and his wife Jill attended their own grim Veterans Day ceremony at the Korean War Memorial in Philadelphia on Wednesday.
Since his projected victory was announced on Saturday, Biden has addressed the nation, established a task force on coronavirus, spoke with world leaders, including Trump allies, began vetting potential Cabinet members and delivered political speeches.
The president’s only known activities outside of the White House have been playing golf twice over the weekend, after the results came in.
Typically, routine presidential intelligence briefings have been off the daily schedule. He has not mentioned the dramatic spike in the Covid-19 pandemic across the country.
Trump’s only significant presidential action has been the abrupt firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday, which he announced on Twitter.
His inability to compromise has no legal force in and of itself, but the General Services Administration, the generally low-key agency that runs Washington’s bureaucracy, has refused to approve the transition, delaying funding and security reporting.
Biden’s inauguration is January 20.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
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