Joe Biden will be next US president after Donald Trump, various outlets call election for Democrat
Joe Biden was elected president on Saturday, beating President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania to secure a projected 284 projected votes in the electoral college, according to the Associated Press. Kamala Harris will be the vice president, the first woman and person of color in US history to take that position. According to AP, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina are still too close to call. At the time of the announcement, Biden was leading in Nevada, and was slightly ahead in Georgia Friday morning; Trump is leading in North Carolina. Though AP and Fox News called Arizona for Biden other news outlets were wary of doing so as the margin was too close.
Trump and his campaign have claimed that the Democrats were "trying to rig an election." This despite the lack of evidence, and the president maintained that the votes counted after Election Day are "illegal." Multiple tweets made by him were flagged down for misinformation by Twitter after which Trump tweeted, "Twitter is out of control, made possible through the government gift of Section 230!”
However, if Biden replaces Trump at the White House, chances are the incumbent will not attend the incoming president's swearing-in, says former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci.
"Everybody around him says no," Scaramucci remarked when asked if Trump would attend Biden's inauguration in the future. "Everybody says that he will not do that, and that he's going to break every norm and he's going to break every tradition. And he hasn't gotten along with the past presidents. He didn't go to John McCain's funeral. He didn't go to George Herbert Walker Bush's funeral."
However, Scaramucci said that it's his personal belief that the president might attend the inauguration as "it's in his best interests to do so." He continued, "And since he always acts in what he thinks is his best interests, I am going to make the bet that he does it."
New York Times White House corresponded Maggie Haberman too has claimed that Trump could make history by avoiding Biden's swearing-in ceremony in 2021 after claiming that his loss was due to votes being manipulated. She tweeted, "People close to the president question whether he will invite Biden to the WH before inauguration. Or if he'll go to the inauguration himself. He does not care about the norms of the office. But no one I have talked to thinks he will refuse to leave."
Meanwhile, many on the right feel that Trump will be a predominant entity in Republican Party politics even after stepping down. Fox News host Laura Ingraham said on her show 'The Ingraham Angle' on Friday night: "If there is no path for Donald Trump's second term, it doesn't mean the end of the America First movement or his role in leading it. On the contrary, this is only the beginning," Ingraham said.
During the segment, she also claimed, "The media knows he will be a GOP kingmaker for 2022 and 2024, no doubt." She continued, "They know he's a political hero to tens of millions of Americans, and they want to take that from him, too."