President Trump's "full-frontal attempt to undermine the integrity of the vote" from the White House podium on Thursday night was swiftly slammed by Democrats, nonpartisan analysts, historians, and a handful of Republicans, The Associated Press reports. Trump "had spent months laying the groundwork for such a moment," and while his "diatribe was in line with his past misstatements about U.S. elections, it was still a watershed event to hear the president of the United States so thoroughly run down the conduct of an American election in real time, triggering fresh anxiety about prospects for a peaceful transition of power."
"On his darkest day, Richard Nixon would never have attacked democracy the way Donald Trump has now done," John Dean, who served as Nixon's White House counsel during Watergate, told AP. "At the potential of losing, Trump has shamed himself and soiled the American presidency. God save us when he actually loses."
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