George W. Bush tells Trump he must admit defeat because election ‘was fair’ – but president won’t back down
GEORGE W. Bush has told Donald Trump that he must admit defeat because the 2020 presidential election "was fundamentally fair".
The former president released a statement on Sunday to congratulate President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris despite their "political differences."
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His supportive words come just one day after Biden addressed the nation in light of his victory.
Bush announced that he spoke with Biden and thanked him for last night's speech, saying: "I offered him the same thing I offered Presidents Trump and Obama: my prayers for his success, and my pledge to help in any way I can."
The former president then added: "The fact that so many of our fellow citizens participated in this election is a positive sign of the health of our democracy and a reminder to the world of its strength.
"No matter how you voted, your vote counted. has the right to request recounts and pursue legal challenges, and any unresolved issues will be properly adjudicated.
"The American people can have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair, its integrity will be upheld, and its outcome is clear."
Both the former President and his wife Laura wished "our leaders and their families" the best and urged the country to come together.
"We ask for God's continued blessings on our country," the added.
"And we urge all Americans to join us in wishing our next President and Vice President well as they prepare to take up their important duties."
Donald Trump though has continued to make unfounded statements about voter fraud.
In a Twitter rant, he wrote: “We should look at the votes. We’re just beginning the tabulation stage. We should look at these allegations. We’re seeing a number of affidavits that there has been voter fraud. We have a history in this country of election problems. In Pennsylvania you had an order by a... "
Before adding in another message: "Supreme Court Justice to compel them to separate ballots that were received after the legislative deadline. It required the intervention of Justice Alito. That’s a large group of ballots. When you talk about systemic problems, it’s about... "
Then he continued: "how these ballots were authenticated, because if there’s a problem in the system about authentication, that would seriously affect the ENTIRE ELECTION - And what concerns me is that we had over a hundred million mail-in ballot in cites like Philladelphia... "
...and Detroit with a long series of election problems (to put it mildly).” "
Later he added: “We believe these people are thieves. The big city machines are corrupt. This was a stolen election. Best pollster in Britain wrote this morning that this clearly was a stolen election, that it’s impossible to imagine that Biden outran Obama in some of these states.
....Where it mattered, they stole what they had to steal. ."
In another tweet he lashed out at the media, dubbing them "Lamestream media".
He wrote: "Since when does the Lamestream Media call who our next president will be? We have all learned a lot in the last two weeks!"
Biden and his running mate will be in Washington D.C. on January 20, 2021.
Despite Trump's refusal to concede defeat, had .
Trump's sons have demanded a "manual recount" of the vote and wife Melania has urged him not to concede defeat.
Eric Trump early this morning: "Software from hell! There needs to be a manual recount of every ballot in this country right now!"
His tweet linked to a Breitbart article reporting that another county in Georgia is "encountering a glitch."
According to the report, the glitch has caused a slowdown in the tallying of thousands of votes.
Donald Trump Jr also expressed his concern to social media, : "We went from 4 years of Russia rigged the election, to elections can’t be rigged really fast didn’t we???"
Trump Jr later re shared a tweet slamming the alleged election fraud as "so broad they thought it would be undetectable."
Outgoing First Lady .
In a Twitter message she wrote: "The American people deserve fair elections.
"Every legal - not illegal - vote should be counted. We must protect our democracy with complete transparency.”
Republican Senator Mitt Romney while admitting the presidential contest was over said it was time to get behind the President.
He said Trump would remain a "900lb Gorilla" in the GOP even after he left the White House.
Romney said on Fox News Sunday: "I believe the great majority of people who voted for Donald Trump want to make sure that his principles and his policies are pursued.
"So he's not disappearing by any means. He's the 900lb gorilla when it comes to the Republican party.
"The presidential race was more a matter of a referendum on a person. And when it came to policy we did pretty well. Republicans overall did better than Democrats in this election."
in states including Pennsylvania.
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Giuliani said he had facts of ballot fraud on the Fox News' Sunday Morning Features show with anchor Maria Bartiromo, who had several other allies on as guests urging Trump not to concede.
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Meanwhile, President to his Democrat rival.
The 22nd amendment states a president cannot be elected more than twice but does not specify that the terms must be held consecutively.