WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump renewed baseless allegations of election fraud on Monday, nearly a week after Democrats swept both chambers of the US Congress, reversing course just days after saying he would accept the midterm results.
‘Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest. How could the Polls be so wrong???’ Trump wrote on Truth Social, alleging without evidence that large early voting ‘dumps’ had made Republican victories impossible.
‘It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter!’ he added.
The accusations marked a sharp reversal from Trump’s initial acceptance of the outcome. ‘I am absolutely willing to accept those results,’ he told The New York Times on election night.He has also offered his own analysis of why Republicans lost, acknowledging on Fox News that the Iran war had contributed to the defeat.
As it stands, Democrats have won 54 Senate seats and 254 House seats, giving them comfortable majorities in both chambers of Congress. Some key races, including Senate contests in Alaska and Mississippi, have yet to be called.
In the run-up to the midterms, Trump made claims about widespread voting fraud, despite evidence thatitisrare.
The president has repeatedly made unfounded claims of election fraud, most notably following his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. He and his allies alleged for months that the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden, had been rigged against him. The jus-tice department during his administration has made unprecedented attempts to exert more federal control over elections a power the Constitution primarily delegates to individual states.
Days before the midterms, it filed controversial lawsuits in federal courts challenging the count and certification of votes in California and Alaska, but judges ruled against them in nearly all instances.
‘Donald Trump’s pathetic return to election denialism was inevitable, said Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the US Senate.
‘He can whine all he wants, but nothing will stop this inescapable truth: For the last two years of his presidency, Trump will face the largest Democratic congressional majorities in decades, all because he has been an unprecedented failure.’-Agencies