The Guardian : Jun 12, 2020, 05:25 PM
Washington: Joe Biden has predicted the military will escort Donald Trump from the White House should the president lose November’s election but refuse to leave office.Biden, speaking to the Daily Show’s Trevor Noah, said that his single greatest concern is that the president will “try to steal this election”.The Democratic presidential nominee cited Trump’s baseless linking of mail-in ballots to voter fraud, even though he has used this method of voting himself, and his accusations, without evidence, that Democrats are trying to rig the election.Before the 2016 election Trump claimed the poll was rigged against him and even after he triumphed over Hillary Clinton he asserted, again with no evidence, that millions of people voted illegally against him. He estimated this cohort to consist of 3 million votes. This was the number Clinton beat him by in the popular vote, as opposed to the electoral college system that determines who ascends to the White House.Biden told Noah that he has thought about a scenario where Trump would refuse to relinquish power after losing the election but said he was confident top military figures would intervene. “I am absolutely convinced they will escort him from the White House with great dispatch,” Biden said.Trump is trailing Biden in most opinion polls, with the president’s election campaign demanding that CNN retract a “stunt and phony” poll that found the incumbent is trailing his challenger by 14 points. CNN has said it stands by its poll.On Thursday afternoon, Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the Trump campaign, said of Biden’s remarks: “This is just another brainless conspiracy theory from Joe Biden as he continues to try to undermine confidence in our elections.”He added: “President Trump has been clear that he will accept the results of the 2020 election.”