United States President Donald Trump declined to publicly commit to accept the results of the upcoming November presidential election, and also declined to say whether the Confederate flag was an offensive symbol.
In an interview with Fox News host Chris Wallace, aired on Sunday, Trump said it was too early to make such an ironclad guarantee, echoing a similar threat he made weeks before the 2016 vote and mocking polls. recent showing him lagging behind presumptive Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
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“I have to see. Look … I have to see,” Trump said. “No, I’m not going to say yes. I’m not going to say no, and not the last time either.”
Biden’s campaign replied, “The American people will decide these elections. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting intruders outside the White House.”
While it is considered remarkable that a sitting president expressed less than complete confidence in the electoral process of American democracy, the statement follows Trump’s playbook of four years ago, when in the final stages of his career against Hillary Clinton He said he would not commit to honoring the election results if the Democrat won.
Pressured during an October 2016 debate about whether he would abide by the will of the voters, Trump replied that “it would keep him on hold.”
Confederate flag
During the interview, Trump also declined to say whether the Confederate battle emblem, which has come to represent racial oppression and slavery for many Americans, was an offensive symbol.
“It depends on who you are talking to, when you are talking,” Trump replied. “When people proudly had their Confederate flags, they don’t talk about racism. They love their flag, it represents the South. They like the South … I say it is freedom from many things, but it is freedom of expression.”
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Trump has also promised to veto the annual National Defense Authorization Act on an amendment to remove the names of Confederate generals from military bases within a year. The position is broken with several of his Republican colleagues in Congress.
“We won world wars with these, with these military bases, no, I will not change. I will not change.” Trump said in the interview, that it was recorded on Friday.
Coronavirus
Trump also defended his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, despite the United States leading the world in the number of cases and deaths, and a renewed increase in states that tried to reopen their economies early.
Trump said the United States is “the envy of the world” in evidence, while repeating its opposition to any national mandate to wear masks.
“I want people to have some freedom,” he said.
Referring to what he called an early prediction that the virus would one day disappear, he said, “Eventually I will be right. It will go away and I will be right.”
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Attack on Biden
Trump attacked Biden as “not competent” to lead the United States, saying that the polls conducted over the weekend showed more voter disenchantment with his own handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“They shot him, they shot him mentally,” Trump said of Biden, adding that if the former vice president is elected on November 3, “he will destroy this country.”
Facing the multiple challenges of an expanding pandemic, racial unrest and a struggling economy, Trump made several unfounded or highly speculative allegations that Biden would “triple his taxes” and “pay the police.”
He added that “religion will be gone,” referring to Democratic officials who ban large church services to stop the spread of the virus.
Wallace told the president that a new Fox opinion poll showed Biden with a substantial advantage over Trump, not only for his ability to handle the pandemic (with a 17-point lead) and to deal with racial unrest (by 21 points), but even … for a single point: in managing the economy, for a long time a strong point of Trump.
And a new Washington Post-ABC News poll has Biden leading Trump among registered voters nationwide by a forceful 15-point margin, 55 to 40 percent.
Trump dismissed such polls as “false” and said White House polls show him winning both nationally and in key key states.
“Let Biden sit in an interview like this, he will be on the floor crying for mommy. He will say, ‘mommy, mommy, please take me home,'” the president added.
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