In a tweet published on Thursday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded off on President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 presidential race.
Democrat Joe Biden won both the Electoral College and the popular vote, but Trump has refused to concede the race, alleging widespread voter fraud and launching legal challenges in several battleground states. Republican politicians have endorsed his claims and largely held off on acknowledging Biden as president-elect.
“The election was not close. There was no evidence of fraud. The states have certified the results,” Clinton wrote, taking aim at both the commander-in-chief and the GOP.
“Yet Trump continues to try to overturn the election at the expense of our democracy. The emperor has no clothes. Republican electeds who continue to humor him have no spines.”
Last month, as Politico reported, Clinton described Trump’s refusal to concede as a “terrible aberration” and noted that all of his predecessors participated in peaceful and orderly transitions of power.
Speaking at the Transnational Governance at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, Clinton also noted that former President Barack Obama invited Trump to the White House in 2016, assisting the incoming administration with the transition process.
She added that Trump’s unwillingness to extend the same courtesy to Biden could “cost lives” because the Democrat’s team won’t be able to properly prepare for handling the coronavirus pandemic.
“Donald Trump has demonstrated a callous disregard for democratic norms and the rule of law which undergird democracies,” Clinton added.
Though she conceded the 2016 presidential race to Trump after he was declared the winner, Clinton has repeatedly described his presidency as illegitimate, blaming his victory on Russian meddling.
In a recent interview with The New York Times , for example, the former secretary of state said that “there is an air of illegitimacy that surrounds Trump’s presidency.”
“Because I was the candidate that they basically stole an election from. I was the candidate who won nearly three million more votes,” she stated.
Despite Republicans’ refusal to acknowledge the results, the presidential transition has begun.
On November 24, as CNN reported, the General Services Administration formally allowed Biden’s team to move forward with the process. In a letter, Administrator Emily Murphy said that she faced no resistance from the White House.
Trump legal team’s efforts to overturn the 2020 contest have not yielded success. According to Forbes , his lawyers — lead by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — have officially lost or withdrawn 50 lawsuits and won only one.