Bruce Fein: Will Trump Accept Defeat?

March 28, 2024

JOURNALIST DUTY TO KEEP ASKING TRUMP WHETHER HE WILL ACCEPT THE OUTCOME OF THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

 On December 3, 2022, Donald Trump on Truth Social declared that the rules of the Constitution should be “terminated” if he decreed that an election was fraudulent.

On May 10, 2023, Mr. Trump maintained during a CNN town hall with Kaitlan Collins that he would accept the outcome of the 2024 presidential election only if he concluded it was “honest.”

We know Mr. Trump is not credible in speaking of electoral fraud in his own case. He continuously insists he defeated President Joe Biden in 2020 despite definitive evidence accepted by such Trump loyalists as former Vice President Mike Pence, former Attorney General William Barr, and Trump’s lavishly paid private investigators. 61 judicial tribunals rejected his claims.

Mr. Trump’s views on dishonoring the Constitution, if he shouts the 2024 election was dishonest, have not changed.

Journalists need to make Mr. Trump’s disloyalty to constitutional processes for electing the President known to voters every day by repeatedly asking him whether he would accept defeat if state-certified electoral votes showed him the loser under the Twelfth Amendment.

They should report daily the number of days that have elapsed since May 10, 2023, in which Mr. Trump, in code language, has said he will dishonor the Constitution if he loses the November 2024 election.

Promoting an informed electorate is an urgent duty.