Trump Says He'll Leave Office Peacefully If He Loses The Election, But He Has "Joked" 31 Times About Not Leaving, Even After Two Terms

Donald Trump said on Friday that he would leave the White House peacefully if he loses the election in November.

Certainly, if I don't win, I don't win. ... [It would] be a very bad thing for our country ... [But I'd] go on, do other things.

Certainly. ...

Trump has never in his adult life reacted that way after losing a competition. Does anyone think he'll start now, after he loses the biggest, most public competition of his life, with the thought of facing numerous lawsuits the second he leaves office? You know my answer.

For the record, Trump has "joked" about not leaving office after the maximum two terms (assuming he wins a second term) at least 31 times. He made 23 of those "jokes" in nine months last year (April-December), including at least once in every month.

When Trump says he will (or won't) do something, that's usually a sure sign that he will do the opposite. Trump planned to contest the results in 2016, saying the election was stolen, but then he won, which was a shock to his entire campaign.

Joe Biden recently suggested Trump may refuse to accept the results of the election if it does not go his way.

It's my greatest concern. My single greatest concern. This president is going to try to steal this election. This is a guy who said that all mail-in ballots are fraudulent. ... [If he doesn't leave office peacefully] I am absolutely convinced [the military] will escort him from the White House with great dispatch.

Biden also said this, in April 2020:

Mark my words. I think he is gonna try to kick back [postpone] the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can't be held.

He's far from alone.

Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney, told Congress:

Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, there will never be a peaceful transition of power.

Nancy Pelosi told the New York Times the Democrats must win "big" so Trump and his supporters cannot claim the election was illegitimate:

We have to inoculate against that, we have to be prepared for that.

Pelosi recalled thinking before the 2018 elections:

If we win by four seats, by a thousand votes each, he's not going to respect the election. He would poison the public mind. He would challenge each of the races; he would say you can't seat these people. We had to win.

John Podesta, co-chair of President Obama's 2008 transition team, told NBC News:

They're a "let's burn the house down on the way out" kind of crowd. I'd like to think it was different, but there's nothing to indicate that they would play it straight. One of the challenges will be, which I think with Trump you have to anticipate, is what if he doesn't accept the results?

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, March 2020:

My concern is that in the age of Trump that other governors might think, or that the president might ask, for a delay in the November election based on something, perhaps this, perhaps something else.

Bill Maher, Trump's favourite comedian, before the 2016 election:

I know you're young and idealistic, so I've heard these young people on the news and they say things like, "Well, Donald Trump, I don't like him, but Hillary, I can't vote for a liar." But I've been doing this for 23 years on TV, I've seen a lot, I know politics. This is different. I promise you, this will not make your life better. Once fascists get power, they don't give it up. You've got President Trump for life.

Bill Maher, October 2019:

I've been saying for a very long time now that I don't think he's leaving. I mean, he's wasn't going to leave the first time, he said it's all about "it's rigged." He could lose by a landslide in 2020 and I still think he would say "it's rigged, fake news, deep state." I just don't think you're going to get him out of there.

Philip Bobbitt, a law professor at Columbia University and the University of Texas:

I doubt he would go quietly and would not be surprised if he claims he was robbed, but any attempt to hold onto office — to refuse to leave the mansion, or keep issuing executive orders drafted by Stephen Miller, or sending nominations to the Senate — would be laughably brief. There is no Praetorian Guard in the United States, certainly not the highly professional Secret Service.

Walter Dellinger, professor emeritus at Duke Law School and former acting solicitor general and head of the Office of Legal Counsel under President Clinton:

I believe that the career officials of the federal government, including members of the military, would adhere to the person who won, regardless of which candidate they supported. [But] the role of Fox News should not be underestimated. If Fox declared that Trump was the "real winner" all bets would be off. I believe, however, they would report honestly on such an important question.

Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard and one of the authors of How Democracies Die, warned that a dangerous situation could emerge if the outcome of the 2020 election was very close,

one that, broadly like 2000, hinged on one or maybe two contested states. [In that case,] it is possible that Republicans would close ranks behind Trump, resulting in a constitutional crisis. If right-wing media and the G.O.P. politicians were to remain solidly behind Trump, as they largely have thus far in previous scandals, there would be no easy constitutional exit. ... In my view, the key variable is the response of the Republican coalition, including Fox News and other major right wing media. If the Republican coalition fractures, Trump is toast.

Bruce Cain, a political scientist at Stanford:

In the Republican mind-set, the rules about transparency, legislative process and conflict of interest were driven by liberal reform groups not by people who actually wield power in America's interest. America is teetering toward socialism and cultural chaos. Hence, the President has the right to push the boundaries of his power to achieve the right outcomes. [It's] Nixon redux but worse. I naïvely thought we passed this test as a country already with Watergate and Iran-contra but it seems that our periodic assaults on democratic values are like a bad weather cycle made worse by a more extreme political climate.

Bart Bonikowski, a professor of sociology at Harvard:

[Trump's governing strategy of not adhering to tradition] signals to Trump's (overwhelmingly white) supporters that he's willing to represent them at any cost, even that of liberal democracy itself. [While] the substance of Trumpism is ethnonationalist, its form is authoritarian. Like other aspiring autocrats, such as Hungary's Viktor Orbán or Poland's Jarosław Kaczyński, Trump seeks to delegitimize his opposition as "enemies of the people" in order to mobilize his base and maintain a stranglehold on power. [Whether perpetrated by] journalists, independent judges, career civil servants, or legislators, any attempt at checking his power is seen as a betrayal of him, his supporters, and ultimately, the nation.

David Brady, a political scientist and a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, said polls show that hard-core Trump supporters are likely to disbelieve outcomes in which Trump is cast as the loser.

[In] the latest YouGov poll, 89 percent of those who strongly approve of the job Trump is doing also say that the deep state is trying to overthrow the president. [At the same time,] less than 15 percent of those same strong Trump supporters have any faith in TV news, newspapers and less than a third support the C.I.A., F.B.I. and so on.

Ashley Jardina, a political scientist at Duke:

Some of Trump's most steadfast supporters are white Americans who feel a strong sense of solidarity with their racial group [while experiencing] a sense of racial alienation — or a profound feeling of group disenfranchisement. [These voters] tend to agree that American society owes whites a better chance in life than they have received, that it hasn't given them an opportunity to get ahead, and that it hasn't dealt fairly with white people.

On March 3, 2016, Trump was asked what he would do if the military refused to obey his orders to, for example, torture suspected terrorists.

They won't refuse. They're not going to refuse me. Believe me. ... I'm a leader. I'm a leader. I've always been a leader. I've never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they're going to do it. That's what leadership is all about.

In the final debate before the 2016 election, Trump was asked if he would accept the result of this election. He never said he would.

I will look at it at the time. I'm not looking at anything now. I'll look at it at the time. What I've seen — what I've seen is so bad. First of all, the media is so dishonest and so corrupt, and the pile-on is so amazing. The New York Times actually wrote an article about it, but they don't even care. It's so dishonest. And they've poisoned the mind of the voters. But unfortunately for them, I think the voters are seeing through it. I think they're going to see through it. We'll find out on November 8th. But I think they're going to see through it. If you look ... if you look at your voter rolls, you will see millions of people that are registered to vote — millions, this isn't coming from me — this is coming from Pew Report and other places — millions of people that are registered to vote that shouldn't be registered to vote. So let me just give you one other thing. So I talk about the corrupt media. I talk about the millions of people -- tell you one other thing. She shouldn't be allowed to run. It's crooked — she's — she's guilty of a very, very serious crime. She should not be allowed to run. And just in that respect, I say it's rigged, because she should never ... she should never have been allowed to run for the presidency based on what she did with e-mails and so many other things. . . . What I'm saying is that I will tell you at the time. I'll keep you in suspense. OK?

On March 12, 2019, Trump told the far-right website Breitbart:

I can tell you, I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don't play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.

On September 29, 2019, Trump tweeted the words of Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas:

Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats ... know they couldn't beat him in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, and they're increasingly aware of the fact that they won't win against him in 2020, and Impeachment is the only tool they have to get rid of Donald J. Trump. ... I have never seen the Evangelical Christians more angry over any issue than this attempt to illegitimately remove this President from office, overturn the 2016 Election, and negate the votes of millions of Evangelicals in the process. ... If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.

On October 1, 2019, Trump tweeted:

As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!

So of course, he's going to try and steal it. We have known that for a while. It's the main reason Trump was impeached earlier this year. Saying Trump is trying to steal the election and will say it's crooked if he loses is like saying Trump will post a tweet over the weekend, or eat a double-cheeseburger, or say something racist. It's a no-brainer (pun intended). And he's not going to passively accept defeat. I cannot imagine anyone with thinner skin or someone more pathologically desperate to make people think he is greatest and smartest and winningest person who ever lived. Trump would almost rather die than be perceived as a loser. Which is unfortunate, because Trump is a stone cold loser.

Numerous types of voter suppression are publicly known, electronic machines are easily manipulated, fewer (and poorly maintained) machines are sent to non-white areas with fewer polling stations, etc., etc. Whatever the results in November, it will not have been a fair election. Those have never existed in the United States.

The United States has held 59 presidential elections since 1788. White women have been allowed to vote in fewer than half of them (26 of 59 (44%)). Black women were not officially allowed to vote in the US until 1965, with passage of the Voting Rights Act. [See comments] That legislation removed many of the obstacles erected to prevent black men and women from voting. Since then, there have been 13 presidential elections (13 of 59 (22%)). Obstacles still remain and all kinds of cheating have been tried and refined in the last 55 years.