In the final hours of the 2020 presidential campaign season, President Donald Trump says he has not prepared a concession or acceptance speech yet.
After visiting his campaign headquarters on Tuesday, he was asked if he had prepared a victory or concession speech. He said, “No, I’m not thinking about concession speech or acceptance speech yet.”
“Hopefully, we’ll be only doing one of those two. And you know, winning is easy. Losing is never easy — not for me, it’s not,” he added.
Watch the video below:
#BREAKING: President Trump speaks at RNC Annex: "I'm not thinking about concession speech or acceptance speech yet." pic.twitter.com/CnhyI60kKj
— The Hill (@thehill) November 3, 2020
The first polls on election night will close between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. EST. As of Tuesday afternoon, public polls show Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leading Trump in several key battleground states.
However, Trump has voiced optimism about his electoral prospects and said he believes he has a “solid chance” of winning.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the country has seen a surge in mail-in and early voting. Experts caution that the extra time it will take election officials to count the ballots could mean Americans will not know the winner of the election on Tuesday night.
A report over the weekend claimed that Trump would prematurely declare victory on Tuesday if the results show him “ahead.” But the president called that story “false.”
He continued to say that “it’s a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election. I think it’s a terrible thing when people or states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over because it can only lead to one thing.”
“I think it’s terrible when we can’t know the results of an election the night of the election… We’re going to go in the night of, as soon as that election’s over, we’re going in with our lawyers,” he added.
And in a Tuesday morning interview on “Fox & Friends,” he said he would “not play games” with declaring victory. He went on to say he will declare himself victorious “when there’s victory. If there’s victory.”
