WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday that it’s going to be difficult for him to concede the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden even when the Electoral College is expected to soon formally certify Biden’s victory.
“It’s going to be a very hard thing to concede,” Trump told reporters on Thanksgiving evening as he took questions from the press for the first time since the election following a series of video conferences with military service members.
Pressed further about whether he would concede once the Electoral College finalizes Biden’s win, Trump said, “If they do, they’ve made a mistake.”
When asked, however, whether he would leave the White House under that outcome, Trump said, “Certainly I will.”
Trump falsely told reporters at the White House during a 35-minute question-and-answer session that he won the 2020 election by a “tremendous” amount. According to the NBC News election tracker, Biden has received more than 80 million votes and Trump has received 73.8 million votes.
He reiterated his baseless claims about the election being stolen from him because of fraudulent votes in key battleground states that Biden wound up winning.
He also falsely said that it would be hard to concede “because we know there was massive fraud.” The president said, “You are going to see things happening over the next week or two that are going to be shocking to people.”
Trump said that he plans to visit Georgia, likely on Saturday, and suggested that he plans to hold what would likely be some sort of campaign-style rally.
“Speaking of Georgia, we’re going there. I spoke with the two great senators today. I'll probably be going on Saturday,” he said, suggesting that it would potentially be an event to help boost the runoff races of the two GOP incumbent senators from the state that will decide which party controls the Senate.
Trump also said that he doesn’t want to say yet whether he plans to attend Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
