Trump abruptly changes tone: 'I will never give up fighting for you and our nation'
President Trump appeared to temper his tone on Friday afternoon, issuing a statement that stood in sharp contrast to his rambling rant on Thursday night and his flurries of all-caps tweets baselessly alleging election fraud on Twitter. Though the statement still insinuated the existence of "illegal ballots" — something both election officials and the president's own campaign aides have failed to identify any evidence of — it lacked the defiance of his earlier addresses, and possibly even left room for his acceptance of a narrowing path to victory.
"We believe the American people deserve to have full transparency into all vote counting and election certification, and that this is no longer about any single election," Trump said, adding that "from the beginning we have said that all legal ballots must be counted and all illegal ballots should not be counted. … We will pursue this process through every aspect of the law to guarantee that the American people have confidence in our government. I will never give up fighting for you and our nation."
Notably absent from the statement was the president's further false insistence that he is winning the election, or ahead in states that had not been called yet. Read the full statement below. Jeva Lange
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Film review: ‘The Choral’Feature Ralph Fiennes plays a demanding aesthete
-
Political cartoons for January 19Cartoons Monday's political cartoons include Greenland tariffs, fighting the Fed, and more
-
Spain’s deadly high-speed train crashThe Explainer The country experienced its worst rail accident since 2013, with the death toll of 39 ‘not yet final’
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire
-
US nabs ‘shadow’ tanker claimed by RussiaSpeed Read The ship was one of two vessels seized by the US military
-
Maduro pleads not guilty in first US court hearingSpeed Read Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores pleaded not guilty to cocaine trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracy
-
Iran’s government rocked by protestsSpeed Read The death toll from protests sparked by the collapse of Iran’s currency has reached at least 19
-
Israel approves new West Bank settlementsSpeed Read The ‘Israeli onslaught has all but vanquished a free Palestinian existence in the West Bank’
-
US offers Ukraine NATO-like security pact, with caveatsSpeed Read The Trump administration has offered Ukraine security guarantees similar to those it would receive from NATO
-
Hong Kong court convicts democracy advocate LaiSpeed Read Former Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai was convicted in a landmark national security trial
