Reporter: “Will the president if he does not win this election not accept the results unless he wins?”
McEnany: “The president has always said he will see what happens and make a decision in the aftermath.”
So I think the subtle hint that President Donald Trump reserves the right to take issue with a result in which he loses to former Vice President Joe Biden is pretty much over, then?
McEnany’s answer is as clear as day: If Trump loses, do not expect him to leave or admit that he has lost.
This follows a series of statements and tweets by the president himself over the past few weeks and months in which he tried to suggest that any confidence in voting by post in this election would yield a less than accurate result.
“Some states use ‘dropboxes’ for the collection of Universal Mail-In Ballots. So who will ‘collect’ the ballots, and what can be done about them before they tabulate? A by-election? So bad for our country. Only absent ballot papers acceptable! “
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Trump’s insistence that the election be rigged against him in some way has increased in urgency as it has become more and more clear that he is an underdog to win a second term.
That, of course, is no coincidence. Trump has spent a lifetime with projection of an air of inaccessibility, a story of winning, winning, winning. When dealing with interviews that suggest he is not winning, he apologizes for why. Excuses that always have to do with some unnamed “her” who are out to get him.
While it is not ideal behavior for exposure to adults, when we talk about reviews for Trump’s reality show or some business bet where he was on the wrong side, the consequences are not so terrible.
But when we talk about the health and strength of our democracy, what Trump is doing is catastrophically dangerous for all of us.
The point: If Trump refuses to give in or dismiss the defeat – if such a defeat is clear – it will undergo the peaceful transition of power that America has long enjoyed. And make a following four years even more polarized and terrible than the last four years.
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