President-elect Donald Trump recently sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Kristin Welker on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” During the conversation, Welker asked Trump if he would concede that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden and backtrack on his claims that Democrats stole it from him. However, Trump immediately shut down Welker’s question, refusing to provide an admission that he was wrong about the last election.
Beginning her question, Welker claimed that the country was “deeply divided,” asking Trump if he would concede the 2020 election to Joe Biden for the sake of unity. “Sir, I don’t have to tell you this, because you’ve talked about it. It comes at a time when the country is deeply divided,” she said. “And now you’re going to be leading this country for the next four years. For the sake of unifying this country, will you concede the 2020 election and turn the page on that chapter?”
Trump quickly fired back, “No. Why would I do that?” The president-elect then pointed out that Joe Biden is still the sitting president, implying he should be asked about the current state of division under his administration. “But let me just say, when you say the country is deeply divided, I’m not the President, Joe Biden’s the president.”
“But you’re going to be the president,” Welker retorted. “No,” Trump said, refusing to accept her point before asserting that Biden is largely responsible for the division. “I’m not the president. So when you say it’s deeply divided, I agree, but Biden is the president I’m not. And he has been a divider.” Substantiating his argument, Trump claimed that Biden’s move to allegedly weaponize the federal government against him completely backfired.
He continued telling Welker, “And you know where he divided, it more than anything else, and it probably backfired on him, I think definitely is weaponization, when he weaponized the Justice Department and he went after his political opponent. Me, He went after his political opponent violently because he knew he couldn’t beat him. And I think it really was a bad thing, and it really divided our country.”
Pushing back on Trump, Welker asked Trump why Democrats didn’t steal the election this year if they have such a concentration of power. “Sir, Democrats have control of the White House now they didn’t in 2020 if they are going around stealing elections, when you say Democrats have control now of the White House, yeah, so why didn’t they steal this election, since they have more power now?”
Trump replied, explaining that the massive turnout he attained, giving a decisive electoral win, the popular vote, and both chambers of Congress, made the election “too big to rig” for his opponents. “Because I think it was too big to rig,” he said.
“To the people who say that you’re now directing your Justice Department to investigate 2020 … is that a good use of precious resources?” Trump responded by indicating that, while he has every right to investigate the prior election, he is more concerned with deploying resources toward making the country great again in other ways.
Trump said, “By the way, that what you want them to do, just so you know, I have the right to do that, but I’m not interested in that. You’re not I’m not interested the absolute right. I’m the chief law enforcement officer. You do know that I’m the president, but I’m not interested in that. You know what? I’m interested in drilling and getting prices down and stopping people from pouring into our border that come from prisons and mental institutions.”
