In radio interviews Tuesday, Donald Trump still would not unequivocally commit to accepting the outcome of the election.
Trump has for the past month railed against what he has called the “rigged system” — warning of voter fraud, accusing the media of colluding against him, and signaling multiple times that he may not accept the outcome of the election if he loses. His rhetoric has led many to question whether he will concede the election Tuesday night should he not emerge as the victor.
Appearing on AM Tampa Bay on 970 WFLA, Trump was asked if he’ll contest the results if they are close.
“Well if I think there’s something that was wrong,” Trump said. “Did you notice, when I brought this up a few months ago, Obama, and others said, ‘oh, this is the foundation of our country’ but eight years ago, he was was basically saying that Chicago is rigged. I don’t know if you saw that clip. But he talks up, like, ‘oh, this is the foundation how dare he question the foundation’ and all of this. Oh, give me a break. What’ going on in Philadelphia and Chicago and St. Louis and lots of others, for years it’s legendary OK, talked about for years. They have a clip of Obama basically saying that Chicago elections are rigged. And I say to myself, ‘can you believe that?’
Trump was referring to a 2008 video of then-Senator Barack Obama talking about Republican and Democrats who have tried to “tilt” elections in their direction and discussing ways to investigate vote fraud and give voters more access to cast their ballot.
Trump added, “So no, if I think everything’s on the up and up, that’s a lot different, and we can only see what happens, I hope it’s going to be very fair, I think we’re going to do very well.”
In a different interview Tuesday morning, Trump said he “wants to see what happens” before accepting the results.
“I want to see what happens, you know, how it goes as per our previous little chat,” Trump said on Newsradio 610 WTVN. “You know, you want to see. You hear so many horrible stories and you see so many things that are wrong. So we’ll take a look. Certainly I love this country and I believe in the system, you understand that.”
