President Donald Trump is refusing to publicly commit to accepting the results of the upcoming White House election, recalling a similar threat he made weeks before the 2016 vote, as he scoffs at polls showing him lagging behind Democrat Joe Biden. Trump says it's too early to make such an ironclad guarantee.
"I have to see. Look ... I have to see," Trump told moderator Chris Wallace during a wide-ranging interview on "Fox News Sunday." "No, I'm not going to just say yes. I'm not going to say no, and I didn't last time either."
The Biden campaign responded: "The American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House."
Meanwhile, Trump again questioned the competence of Joe Biden.
“Let Biden sit through an interview like this, he’ll be on the ground crying for mommy,” Trump said in an often contentious interview with correspondent Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”
“He’ll say, ‘Mommy, mommy, please take me home.’”
Trump added: “He can’t do an interview. He’s incompetent.”
The president described the nation's top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, as a "a little bit of an alarmist" about the coronavirus pandemic, and Trump stuck to what he had said back in February - that the virus is "going to disappear." On Fox, he said, "I'll be right eventually."
It is remarkable that a sitting president would express less than complete confidence in the American democracy's electoral process. But for Trump, it comes from his insurgent playbook of four years ago, when in the closing stages of his race against Hillary Clinton, he said he would not commit to honouring the election results if the Democrat won.
Joe Biden is in the lead
A new poll has revealed that US President Donald Trump was 15 points behind presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the run-up to November's election, it was reported.
The ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Sunday which revealed a close margin, 54 per cent for Biden and 44 per cent for Trump, was the fifth consecutive high-quality national poll that showed the former Vice President ahead of Trump by 10 points or more, reports Politico news.
Of the nine such polls conducted since the second half of June, Biden has led Trump by double digits in seven of them.
Prior to the release of the ABC News/Washington Post poll on Sunday, Biden held a 9-point lead in the RealClearPolitics average.
Meanwhile, a Quinnipiac University poll released last week, 45 per cent of registered voters had a favorable opinion of Biden, and 43 per cent viewed him unfavorably.