US President Donald Trump speaks during a videoconference with members of military in the Diplomatic Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020. Trump gave defiant Thanksgiving remarks at the White House Thursday, insisting falsely that he beat Joe Biden and wavering on whether he would ever concede or attend Bidens inauguration. Photographer: Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images When Donald Trump spoke to reporters after the traditional President’s Thanksgiving message to members of the US armed forces stationed abroad, he also repeated his claims that the election result “was a massive fraud”, and spent some time explaining his allegations.
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The Electoral College is expected to formalise the election result within the next month.
However, despite saying he thought formalising president-elect Joe Biden’s victory would be a mistake, Trump said that while it would be “a hard thing” for him to concede to Biden, he would accept it
Trump also has tongues wagging with the question “who next?” after his full pardon of retired general Michael Flynn on 25 November. Flynn was fired by President Barack Obama in 2014 when Flynn was at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Flynn went on to work for Trump as national security adviser for all of 24 days before he was fired for lying to Vice-President Mike Pence. He later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Besides pardoning Flynn, Trump commuted the prison sentence handed down to ally Roger Stone for witness intimidation, lying to Congress and obstruction. Stone was convicted on crimes related to the Russia Hoax investigation - also known as the Muller investigation - into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
During his term Trump has used clemency - such as for “tough sheriff” Joe Arpaio - which reduces a punishment but does not clear the related criminal record.
There is a laundry list of “friends” close to Trump who are either awaiting trial or sentencing, have been sentenced or are under investigation - his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his former lawyer Michael Cohen, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and ex-advisers Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos, to name a few - leaving many people, for many reasons, keenly waiting to hear who he’ll pardon next.
Trump is scheduled to spend 27 November at Camp David, the official presidential retreat in Maryland.
While the3 president stayed on message with regards to “fraudulent elections” and not saying a word about the pandemic, president-elect Joe Biden’s Thanksgiving message went directly to the virus: “We’re going to get through this together even if we have to be apart.”
Not for the first time, Biden referenced the empty chair in a poignant evocation of the absent loved one at the Thanksgiving table, reaching out to all who had lost someone to Covid-19. Biden, ever careful and aware of the division among his countrymen along the Red/Republican and Blue/Democrat divide, also called on Americans to pull together, saying: “We are at war with the virus, not with each other.”
The president-elect gave his Thanksgiving message on Wednesday.