WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump visited the grave of an unidentified soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday, appearing in public for the first time since his failed bid to attend the annual presidential ceremony.
Trump, who honored the veterans at a ceremony held during the continuous rains, spent the last several days at the White House handing out angry, baseless claims of voter fraud after the election defeat.
President-elect Joe Biden did not make any public comment as he exceeded the 270 election votes needed to win the presidency on Saturday.
Despite his official schedule being deprived of public functions, Trump has made a number of staff moves – firing Defense Secretary Mark Asper and installing three staunch loyalists in top defense jobs.. Trump’s pick to serve as acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller, was involved in the Pentagon’s brass, joining the president in a solemn Veterans Day ceremony.
Meanwhile, his legal team has filed a lawsuit alleging vote-rigging in the battlefield states for Biden.
Resistance to accepting the outcome of the presidential race has stalled the transition process as head of the Trump-appointed General Services Administration, which was preparing to certify Biden as the winner of the election.
Certification – known as determination – Releases money for the transition and clears the way for Biden’s team to begin putting the transition process into agencies.
“I think it’s a dilemma, quite clearly,” Biden said Tuesday, refusing to accept Trump’s election results.. The President-elect and his wife, Jill Biden, celebrated Veterans Day with a visit to the Korean War Memorial in Philadelphia.
From his Twitter account on Tuesday, Trump again raised unsubstantiated claims of “abuse of the big vote count.” And predicted that he would eventually win the race he had already lost. Trump’s tweet was quickly flagged off by social media networks as a controversial allegation of election fraud.
With the exception of his weekend visit to his private golf club in Northern Virginia, Trump has been in the White House since election day and last appeared before the camera to make a statement six days ago.
His allies on Capitol Hill, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have promoted the president’s baseless allegations.. They indicated they were ready to let Trump spin their election lawsuits and unequivocal claims of voter fraud for the next few weeks, until the states certify the election in early December and get the election college on December 14th.
Trump was also joined at Arlington National Cemetery by First Lady Melania Trump as well as Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, Pence decided to move to Sunnyvale, Florida from Tuesday to Saturday, but will stay in Washington on Wednesday instead. Pence’s office did not immediately comment on the status of his trip.
Pence has previously gone on vacation to the island along the Gulf Coast of Florida several times.
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