TheNewsGuru

Tag: concede

  • Defiant Trump to his supporters: I will never concede, it doesn’t happen

    Defiant Trump to his supporters: I will never concede, it doesn’t happen

    President Donald Trump on Wednesday disclosed to a rally of his supporters outside the White House that he would never concede that he lost the election, as Congress prepares to certify Joe Biden’s victory.

    “We will never give up,” Trump told thousands of cheering supporters on a grassy expanse near the White House called the Ellipse. “We will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.”

    Trump’s fellow Republicans were poised to lose their majority in the Senate, both chambers of Congress were due to formally certify Biden’s victory in the Nov. 3 election in proceedings that could stretch past midnight.

    In a joint session of the Republican-led Senate and Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, Trump’s allies plan to challenge the results from a handful of states won by Biden.

    Biden won the election by 306-232 in the state-by-state Electoral College and by more than 7 million ballots in the national popular vote, but Trump continues to falsely claim there was widespread fraud and that he was the victor.

    State and federal reviews have debunked Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud even as increasingly desperate legal efforts by his campaign and allies on the right to overturn the election have failed in numerous courts all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Biden is due to take office on Jan. 20.

    During his speech, Trump praised the Republican lawmakers seeking to challenge the election as “brave” and called members of his party who oppose the effort “weak” and pathetic.”

    Pence is set to preside over the proceedings in the Capitol. Despite pressure from Trump to help overturn his election loss, Pence will stick to his ceremonial duties and not block the congressional certification of Biden’s victory, advisers said. Pence, a loyal lieutenant during the four years of Trump’s tumultuous presidency, has no plans to intervene and has told Trump he lacks the power to do so, they said.

    “All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertifiy and we become president,” Trump told his supporters. “Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. And if he doesn’t, it’ll be sad day for our country,” he added.

  • US Poll: Trump’s refusal to concede poises no threats to presidency take over – Biden

    US Poll: Trump’s refusal to concede poises no threats to presidency take over – Biden

    United States President-elect Joe Biden said Tuesday that he doesn’t need President Donald Trump’s help to prepare to take over as president.

    Trump has refused to concede to Biden, despite Biden having won the Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency last week.

    Trump has instead disputed the election results, promoting baseless claims about widespread voter fraud and launching more than a dozen legal challenges in battleground states.

    As Business Insider’s Jake Lahut previously reported, Trump’s refusal means that Biden has so far been denied access to basic transition materials like funding, office space, classified information, and security clearances.

    But Biden said on Tuesday that not having the access “does not change the dynamic at all of what we’re able to do.”

    “We don’t see anything that’s slowing us down, quite frankly.”

    “We’re already beginning the transition,” he said. “We’re well underway.”

    Biden has taken steps to assert himself, including appointing a transition team, a coronavirus task force , and holding calls with world leaders, many of whom acknowledged his victory of the weekend.

    “We’re going to be moving along in a consistent manner putting together our administration, our White House, reviewing who we’re going to pick for Cabinet positions, and nothing’s going to stop it.”

    Presidents-elect usually receive classified intelligence briefings as part of the transition. Biden has not, but said: “Access to classified information is useful, but I’m not in a position to make any decisions on these issues anyway. It would be nice to have it but it’s not critical.”

    Axios reported on Tuesday that Biden’s transition team is weighing legal action if the transition processes do not begin. However, at the press conference, Biden he did not “see a need for legal action.”

    Biden is due to be sworn in as president in January 2021, after the transition period.

    (www.newsnow.co.uk)

  • Ex-IGP Abba says police forced Jonathan to concede to Buhari in 2015

    Ex-IGP Abba says police forced Jonathan to concede to Buhari in 2015

    Former Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Suleiman Abba has revealed that the police under him forced ex-President Goodluck Jonathan to concede the 2015 election to President Muhammadu Buhari.

    Jonathan had congratulated Buhari while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was still collating results of the election.

    This earned him accolades from far and wide.

    But in an interview with Daily Trust, Abba said the police should be given credit for making that happen.

    He said: “Thank God that in our own case, we forced those who lost elections to accept the results. The Nigeria police forced those who lost elections to accept the outcome.

    “I said the Nigeria Police, I didn’t say Suleiman Abba. It was the action of the police that made them to have a change of mind and accept the results. The heroes of that election should have been the police.”

    The former IGP also disclosed that he was under pressure from the stalwarts of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to compromise the 2015 elections.

    He said before then, a top member of the then ruling party had asked him to deliver the 2014 governorship election in Osun state to the PDP.

    The election was between Iyiola Omisore of the PDP and Rauf Aregbesola of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who eventually won.

    Abba said: “Believe me, I have always counted myself lucky. I think because of the little background I gave you about the strength of discipline in me, both personal and professional, I received my sack as a normal development.”

    “I was not shocked for a reason that I knew it would happen. Right from the time I started work as inspector-general of police, I knew that I may not reach the date of my retirement, which would have been 2019, by which time I would have been 35 years in service and 60 years of age.

    “I am saying this because the very first week I took over, we had the elections in Ekiti; that was August 2014. Arrangements had been made for the election by my predecessor and I think it was the same team that also did the Osun election, it was the same AIG.

    “One of the leading stalwarts in the PDP then said to me: ‘IG (you know I was acting then) deliver Osun to us and we will confirm you quickly.’

    “I was shocked! That was when I knew that I may not last long in the office. Immediately, I said to myself, ‘How could I deliver when I am not an electorate? The voters are the ones to deliver, my own was to protect the whole process.’ Of course I said to myself that what happened to one of my predecessors (may his soul rest in peace), Adamu Suleiman, was going to happen to me, maybe I would never be confirmed. He was inspector-general of police and till he left office he was not confirmed.

    “So that is my approach; I accept things the way they come. I said to myself that I was going to leave that office without confirmation; but then, I went to Osun and did what I was supposed to do. Of course, having made up my mind that I wasn’t going to take the dictates of someone on what I had been doing for decades, I went to Osun, addressed the police officers who were very cheerful because they were seeing their IGP for the first time. I told them to go and do what the law protect the electorate, all other stakeholders, INEC officials, observers, and of course, any other person that had the right to be around the polling areas, collation areas.

    “I also told them to go and protect the outcome of the election itself. I warned them also that if they allowed themselves to commit any offence against the electoral act, their punishment would be double because they would lose their jobs and may be charged to court. They heeded my warning and did exactly what was expected of them and the outcome was that a winner emerged.”