White House declines to say whether Trump will accept election results if he loses
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany did not commit President Trump to accepting the results of the presidential election, saying the president has been clear that he will "see what happens" in November.
Her comment in a White House news conference came after the president cast doubt on the election results on Monday, when he said, "The only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged."
On Wednesday, McEnany was asked if that comment means the president will not accept the election results if he loses.
"Is the president saying if he doesn't win this election that he will not accept the results, unless he wins?" an ABC News journalist asked.
"The president has always said he'll see what happens, and make a determination in the aftermath. It's the same thing he said last November. He wants a free election, a fair election, and he wants confidence in the results of the election," McEnany responded, before criticizing states with mass mail-in voting.
The president did indeed give a similar answer in a recent interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace, who asked the president if he would commit to accepting the election results.
"I have to see. Look, you — I have to see. No, I'm not going to just say 'yes.' I'm not going to say no and I didn't last time either," the president said during the interview.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly undermined confidence in the integrity of the election outcome, blasting mass voting by mail even though he himself is expected to vote remotely in November and many of his top aides like McEnany have in the past. The president insists an election with many ballots cast by mail will be "rigged." This week he took aim at secure ballot drop boxes, which are used in both Democratic and Republican-led states.
"Some states use 'drop boxes' for the collection of Universal Mail-In Ballots. So who is going to 'collect' the Ballots, and what might be done to them prior to tabulation? A Rigged Election? So bad for our Country. Only Absentee Ballots acceptable!" the president tweeted earlier this week.
There is no evidence that there is widespread fraud when voting by mail, and the voter fraud commission the president himself established found scant evidence of voter fraud. The president eventually disbanded the commission.