President Donald Trump said Thursday for the first time that he would leave the White House if Joe Biden is officially confirmed the winner of the US election, even as he railed against the “rigged” vote.
Trump has made an unprecedented attempt to defy the results of the election by refusing to concede, spreading wild theories about stolen ballots and launching baseless legal challenges that have been thrown out by courts.
Answering his first questions from reporters since the November 3 vote, the president moved closer to accepting that he would serve only one term in office before Biden is inaugurated on January 20.
When asked if he would leave the White House if the Electoral College confirmed Biden’s victory, Trump said, “Certainly I will. And you know that.”
But “if they do, they made a mistake,” he said, adding, “It’s going to be a very hard thing to concede.”
“I think that there will be a lot of things happening between now and (January) 20th,” he said.
The Electoral College, which determines the White House winner, will meet on December 14 to certify Biden’s victory, with Biden receiving 306 votes to Trump’s 232.
Trump said Thursday he would soon travel to Georgia to campaign ahead of two key runoff elections that will decide which party controls the Senate.
Biden, 78, this week introduced a slate of veteran diplomats and policy-makers who will make up his national security and foreign policy team, saying: “America is back, ready to lead the world.”
He said that in his first 100 days in office, he would tackle the Covid crisis, scrap Trump policies “damaging” the environment and push legislation offering millions of undocumented US residents a route to citizenship.
