Weeks after pressing President Donald Trump on whether he’d accept the results of the November election, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said on Tuesday that he finds it “troubling” that the president is claiming the only way he’ll lose is if the election is “rigged.”
During his wide-ranging and contentious interview with Wallace last month, the president repeatedly declined to say he’d accept the election results if he loses, telling the Fox newsman that he’ll “have to see,” while adding that “mail-in voting is going to rig the election.” In the final 2016 presidential debate, which was moderated by Wallace, Trump also suggested he wouldn’t accept the results because of the “rigged” process.
After Wallace further praised Michelle Obama’s much-lauded DNC speech and said Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden needs a “strong” performance to put “mental acuity” questions to rest, America’s Newsroom anchor Sandra Smith brought up Trump’s latest complaints about the vote.
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“We have to win the election,” Trump said at a campaign event on Monday. “We can’t play games. Get out and vote. Do those beautiful absentee ballots or just make sure your vote gets counted. Make sure because the only way we’ll lose this election is if the election is rigged.”
Noting that the president made similar claims in 2016, Smith wondered aloud if this would be a talking point the president hammers over the final couple months of the election.
“Well, look, the president obviously will make the case for himself and make the case against Joe Biden,” Wallace responded, adding, “But this is troubling and he did it in my interview with him three weeks ago, he has done it repeatedly before and since.”
Pointing out that Trump’s argument is he’ll only lose because “it was stolen from him” and not because the majority of Americans rejected him, the venerable anchor went on to say that “one of the things that we treasure in this country is the peaceful transition of power.”
“One would hope that whoever wins and whoever loses, both sides will agree it was the judgment of the American people and they will abide by it,” Wallace concluded. “It is an argument that as you say President Trump made in 2016. Of course, he didn’t have to make it after the election because he did win. But he is raising that specter again for 2020.”
