Trump tweets that Biden won election, says vote was ‘rigged’

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump appeared to accept for the first time that Joe Biden had been elected the next president, tweeting on Sunday that the Democrat “won because the Election was Rigged.”
“NO VOTE WATCHERS OR OBSERVERS allowed, vote tabulated by a Radical Left privately owned company, Dominion, with a bad reputation & bum equipment that couldn’t even qualify for Texas (which I won by a lot!), the Fake & Silent Media, & more!” he said.
Trump had tweeted that “We will WIN!,” railed against vote-recounting efforts in Georgia, and pushed debunked theories of voting-machine irregularities. The Associated Press and networks called the outstanding states, leaving Biden with 306 Electoral College votes to 232 for Trump, well above the 270 needed to secure the White House.
Trump has vowed to fight the results in court, but his legal moves have been largely unsuccessful and do not target enough votes to overturn the
result. Biden has been moving forward with forming an administration, but Trump’s refusal to concede has locked up millions of dollars in federal money for the transition and blocked classified intelligence briefings.
Thousands of Trump supporters gathered in Washington to rally for the president and were treated to a presidential drive-by. He later tweeted images from the event and fresh complaints about the outcome of the election, some of which were flagged by Twitter.
The White House and the Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump has done little over the past two weeks on some of the administration’s top pre-election priorities.
The stimulus deal he tried to ram through in the closing days of the campaign with ever-higher offers looks dead for now.
His coronavirus briefing ended a lengthy time out of the public eye. He’s stopped calling out governors who are pushing more aggressive lockdowns. And even his prized ban of the Chinese app TikTok has been pushed off, for now.
Trump didn’t speak in public from November 7 — the day news organisations declared Biden the winner — through November 13 afternoon. It was the longest stretch of time without addressing the public since taking office.
The vacuum has been filled by steady speculation about what advice Trump is getting from family members and others about how and when to acknowledge that he’s not getting a second term, and how best to protect his legacy and brand — including for a possible comeback run in 2024.
Trump’s inaction, coupled with his blocking Biden’s ability to get access to federal agencies by refusing to concede, leaves the nation in a unusual state with its outgoing president not doing the job, and its incoming leader stymied from key functions.

National Security
At the same time, abrupt personnel moves at the Pentagon and at Homeland Security have created unease even among some of the president’s allies. The idea that Trump is putting national security at risk is gaining purchase daily.
Senate Republicans including James Lankford of Oklahoma have insisted that Biden start receiving intelligence briefings.
“If that’s not occurring by Friday, I will step in,” Lankford, who sits on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said. It’s unclear if Lankford intervened as promised.
When he broke his silence, Trump suggested for the first time since Election Day that he may have lost to Biden. He made the comment as he rejected more lockdowns in response to a nationwide surge in coronavirus cases, hospitalisations and deaths.
“Whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration it will be, I guess time will tell, but I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown,” Trump said.
On Twitter, Trump continued his claims of victory amid what he says was a “Rigged Election” rife with fraudulently cast votes and botched tallies in Biden’s favour.
But the campaign hasn’t provided evidence to back up those claims, and its legal challenges crumbled in several states.
Trump has encouraged his supporters to protest the
election.