Hours after Mr. Trump’s assertions, Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, expressed alarm over the feedback on Twitter. “Basic to democracy is t
Hours after Mr. Trump’s assertions, Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, expressed alarm over the feedback on Twitter. “Basic to democracy is the peaceable transition of energy; with out that, there may be Belarus,” Mr. Romney wrote. “Any suggestion {that a} president may not respect this Constitutional assure is each unthinkable and unacceptable.”
Mr. Trump’s remarks are a continuation of an extended sequence. Throughout an interview with Fox Information in July, Mr. Trump equally demurred when pressed by the community’s anchor, Chris Wallace, to “give a direct reply” about whether or not he would settle for the election outcomes whatever the consequence.
“I’ve to see,” Mr. Trump mentioned. “No, I’m not going to simply say sure. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t final time, both,” he added, referring to his comparable equivocation earlier than the 2016 election, which he warned may be stolen from him.
Even after his election that yr, Mr. Trump falsely insisted that he had misplaced the favored vote solely as a result of hundreds of thousands of immigrants ineligible to vote had forged ballots for his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
On this marketing campaign, Mr. Trump has primed his supporters to consider his defeat is feasible solely by way of what he has referred to as a “rigged” or “stolen” election. “The one method they’ll take this election away from us is that if it is a rigged election,” Mr. Trump mentioned final month in the course of the Republican Nationwide Conference.
Mr. Trump has additionally lengthy joked about retaining energy past authorized limits, making frequent point out of serving past January 2025, when the Structure — which limits presidents to 2 phrases — requires that he depart workplace.
In 2018, after China’s Communist Celebration introduced the top of a two-term restrict for its presidency, Mr. Trump mentioned at a closed-door fund-raiser that China’s authoritarian chief, Xi Jinping, can be “president for all times.”