A Tennessee lawmaker is warning “there may blood” if Donald Trump loses the election and refuses to accept the results.
Rep. Steve Cohen, a Democrat, told NewsNation’s Dan Abrams he thought Vice President Kamala Harris would win the popular vote by 5 or 6 million votes and prevail in the electoral college.
“But I think Trump won’t stop at anything,” he said. “It will be in the courts, it will be in litigation. And he will be telling people again to, ‘Go to the Capitol if you want to have a country and fight like hell.’”
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“There may be blood, and I’m concerned,” the lawmaker continued.
Trump is facing criminal charges for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. After Trump claimed the election had been rigged, armed militias stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to stop Congress from certifying the results, leaving a police officer and four rioters dead. Four other police officers died by suicide in the months following the attacks.
Capitol police plan to beef up security when Congress counts and certifies the Electoral College results next January, but Cohen thinks security measures—including high, sturdy barriers—should be put in place even before Election Day.
“There could be behavior that’s untoward and violent anytime if Trump doesn’t win,” Cohen said. “If he claims he wins, and they say he doesn’t win, there could be chaos. And Trump will read it and won’t care about the results.”
Abrams agreed that Trump is likely to declare victory even if he loses.
“[Steve] Bannon came right out of jail and said that’s what he’d tell him… that he should declare victory,” Cohen said.
Trump’s former White House adviser was quietly released from prison on Tuesday after serving four months for refusing to cooperate with Congress’ investigation into the Capitol attack. During his first press conference, he pushed his usual election conspiracy theories.
