Threatening to upend a basic pillar of American democracy, Donald Trump refused Wednesday night to say he would accept the results of the November election if he loses to Hillary Clinton. The Democratic nominee declared Trump’s resistance “horrifying.”
Trump has spent the days leading up to Wednesday night’s presidential debate warning voters that the election will be “rigged.” Asked whether he would accept the results, he said, “I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense.”
Earlier, Clinton forcefully accused Trump of favoring Russia’s leader over American military and intelligence experts Wednesday night, as the Republican nominee pointedly refused to accept the U.S. government’s assertion that Moscow has sought to meddle in the presidential election.
In a combative exchange in the final presidential debate, Clinton charged that Russian President Vladimir Putin was backing Trump because “he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.”
Trump denied any relationship with Putin and said he would condemn any foreign interference in the election. But he notably refused to accept the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia was involved in the hacking of Democratic organizations. The Clinton campaign has also said the FBI is investigating Russia’s involvement in the hacking of a top adviser’s emails.
The third presidential debate opened with a measured, policy-focused discussion — a stark contrast to the heated and highly personal clashes that defined the earlier contests. However, Trump quickly reverted to his previous style of repeatedly bursting in to interrupt Clinton as well as moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News.
The 90-minute contest in Las Vegas came just under three weeks before Election Day and with early voting underway in more than 30 states.
The candidates outlined starkly different visions for the Supreme Court under their potential presidencies, with the Republican declaring the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion would be overturned by his judicial nominees.
Clinton vowed to appoint justices who would uphold the ruling legalizing abortion, saying, “We have come too far to have that turned back now.”
Trump pressed Clinton on immigration, accusing her of wanting an “open borders” policy, a characterization she vigorously disputes. The Republican, who has called for building a wall the length of the U.S.-Mexico border, said that under a Clinton presidency, “People are going to pour into our country.”
Clashing on trade, Trump said Clinton had misrepresented her position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, noting that she had originally called it the “gold standard” of trade agreements. Clinton shot back that once the deal was finished, it didn’t meet her standards. “I’ll be against it when I’m president,” she said.
For Trump, the debate marked one of his final chances to reshape a race that appears to be slipping away from him. Clinton’s campaign is confidently expanding into traditionally Republican states, while Trump’s narrow electoral path is shrinking. Already unpopular with a majority of Americans, the GOP nominee has been battered by recent revelations of his vulgar comments about women and a string of assault allegations.
Clinton began the debate with a lead in most battleground states. Her challenge was to both keep up her efforts to paint Trump as unfit to be president and start moving to ease America’s deep divisions, which have only been exacerbated during the campaign. The latter is no easy task for the Democratic nominee, given the public’s persistent questions about her honesty and trustworthiness.
Clinton faced debate questions for the first time about revelations in her top adviser’s hacked emails that show her striking a different tone in private than in public regarding Wall Street banks and trade. She quickly turned the discussion to Russia’s potential role in stealing the emails.
(AP)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
9 Responses
Stupid stupid thing for Trump to say, AND he should issue a statement immediately “clarifying” his statement (we all know that he meant what he said, but in politics you need to “clarify” in order to change the record)
BUT, many YWN readers may not remember what happened in 2000. Al Gore did NOT concede, and did NOT accept the results of the elections before suing multiple times until it got all the way to the Supreme Court. And, following the Supreme Court’s order is not a form of conceding.
Unlike the great Democrat Al Gore, who conceded immediately… oh, wait…
Much ado about nothing. What’s he gonna do about the election results?? Probably just some more whining that’s all. Hard to imagine he’ll have any kind of evidence to take to court.
Thank you very much Donald for handing the presidency to Hillary on a gold platter. Very nice of of you! I appreciate that!
there is already significant evidence of issues, from machine irregularly to dead people on registration lists to states signing up illegal aliens. there is significant ” abizraya d’fraud” in the wikileaks documents.
I’m not sure how sane it is to accept an election anymore. we are supposed to just go with the flow, is that it? we already deviated from the constitution on early voting, and this is a fruitful opportunity for fraud.
democrat leftists oppose common sense steps like voter ID rules. obviously because they don’t care about the fraud at the least, and are using it negatively in the worst.
very bad.
So Americans are not so stupid after all. Actually it’s not that surprising. If Clinton voters include only Arabs, some nutty women and others who are out to destroy America or prefer burying their heads in the sand, Trump has nothing to worry about. After last night’s debate he seems to be ahead by almost 80%.
Unless, of course, Clinton will rig the elections as they’ve been doing for 50 years and as is expected because, as the MSM says: Clinton must win.
Its bizarre that some of the otherwise rational trumpkopfs are still going down this rathole with their fascist hero. The Al Gore case in 2000 was entirely different. Gore did NOT question the outcome of the election in advance. When results seemed to change from the initial network predictions he pulled back his concession until there was a recount and court adjudicated outcome which he IMMEDIATELY accepted and moved on. In this case, we have the first candidate in American history setting the stage in advance for challenging the outcome without any evidence of it being “rigged” as he has been saying. His VP, daughter and campaign manager all said in advance of the debate he would accept the outcome, with no caveats. Instead, Trump proceeded to throw them under his ego-Bus and squash them like he does everyone. If he meant he reserved the right to challenge the outcome if there were documented “irregularities” at the polls, that might be acceptable. But no, he plays this dangerous game and says, I will decide after the election whether or not to accept the outcome. This morning, we are seeing the fallout as even his most passionate supporters (Laura Ingram, Chris Chistie etc.) try to move away from his toxic rhetoric.
First of all, the Gore-Bush election was probably the closest in modern history. And Gore was very patriotic and gracious when it was over. Trump is going to be blown out. He is the epitome of gaiveh, a lesson we can all learn from on how not to behave.
Trump must have liked AL Gore’s poise and so he switched parties from Reform (the anti-Semitic party) to Democrat. Now, he invited a Hamas supporter to the debate, but some will claim that he’s pro-Israel…