By Jack Phillips
White House economic advisor Peter Navarro said Friday the administration is operating under the view that President Donald Trump has won a second term.
“We are moving forward here at the White House under the assumption that there will be a second Trump term,” he said in an interview with Fox News on Friday morning. “We think he won that election, and any speculation about what Joe Biden might do, I think, is moot at this point,” he continued.
Navarro said that on Election Day, President Trump appeared to win. Then, he said, there were enough votes “to catch up to the president” after Nov. 3.
“But if you look statistically at what happened, clearly the president won this election and was leading on Election Day, and then after Election Day somehow in these key battleground states they got just enough votes to catch up to the president. That’s kind of what is being investigated,” he said.
On Nov. 12, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s cybersecurity subdivision said that “the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double-checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result.”
But the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) chairman, Trey Trainor, said last week that he believes “there is voter fraud” in key states. “Our whole political system is based upon transparency to avoid the appearance of corruption,” he said in the interview while alleging that Pennsylvania and other states have not been transparent, adding that if no observers were allowed, it’s “an illegitimate election.”
On Tuesday, another Trump administration official, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, half-joked during a news conference that “there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.”
“The world is watching what’s taking place,” he said in a later interview with Fox News. “We’re gonna count all the votes. When the process is completed, they’ll be electors selected. There’s a process, the Constitution lays it out pretty clearly.”
Qualifying his remarks earlier, Pompeo said that “we’ll see what the people ultimately decided when all the votes have been cast,” noting that the United States has “a process” in tabulating votes and dealing with all legal challenges.
“The Constitution lays out how electors vote. It’s a very detailed process laid out. We need to comply with all of that, and then I am very confident that we will have a good transition,” the secretary added. “That we will make sure that whoever is in office at noon on January 20 has all the tools readily available so that we don’t skip a beat with the capacity to keep Americans safe.”
