Trump tweets words 'he won;' says vote rigged, not conceding

President Donald Trump worked Sunday to take back an apparent ackwledgement that Joe Biden won White House and was making clear he would keep trying to overturn election result. Trump's earlier comments h given some critics and supporters hope that White House was rey to begin working on a transition with Biden's team. t so fast, Trump would soon assure.

Trump, without using Biden's name, said that “He won" as part of a tweet that me baseless claims about a “rigged" election. But as president saw how his comments were being interpreted as his first public ackwledgment of a Biden victory, Trump quickly reversed course.

“He only won in eyes of FAKE NEWS MEDIA,” Trump subsequently tweeted. “I concede THING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!”

re was widespre fraud in 2020 election. In fact, election officials from both political parties stated publicly that election went well, and international observers confirmed re were serious irregularities. Trump’s campaign has tried to mount legal challenges across country, but many of lawsuits have been thrown out and ne has included any evidence that outcome might be reversed.

Biden defeated Trump by winning back a trio of battleground states: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and topped 270 electoral vote threshold to clinch presidency. Biden so far has 78.8 million votes, most ever by a winning candidate, to Trump's 73.1 million.

“If president’s prepared to begin to recognize that reality, that’s positive,” Biden's incoming chief of staff, Ron Klain, told NBC's “Meet Press.” Still, Klain said, “Donald Trump’s Twitter feed doesn’t make Joe Biden president or t president. American people did that.”

A Republican goverr, Arkansas’ Asa Hutchinson, said “it was good, actually” to see Trump's tweet that Biden won. “I think that’s start of an ackwledgment. ... We want to make sure that re is a smooth transition,” Hutchinson said on NBC. Nearly two weeks after Election Day, Trump has neir called Biden r me a formal concession, and White House officials have insisted that y are preparing for a second term.

Former President Barack Obama, in an interview conducted and aired Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” said he would remind Trump that, as president, he is a public servant and a temporary occupant of office.

“And when your time is up n it is your job to put country first and think beyond your own ego, and your own interests, and your own disappointments,” Obama said. “My vice to President Trump is, if you want at this late st in game to be remembered as somebody who put country first, it’s time for you to do same thing.”

Obama also criticized those Republicans going along with Trump’s false claims of widespre voter fraud. “I’m more troubled by fact that or Republican officials who clearly kw better are going along with this, are humoring him in this fashion. It is one more step in delegitimizing t just incoming Biden ministration, but democracy generally. And that’s a dangerous path,” he said.

In recent days, Trump appeared to be inching closer to ackwledging reality of his loss. In comments Friday in Rose Garden about a coronavirus vaccine, Trump said his ministration would “t be going to a lockdown” to slow spre of COVID-19, and ded that “whatever happens in future, who kws which ministration it will be? I guess time will tell.”

Trump on Sunday renewed his groundless attacks on an election techlogy firm, Dominion Voting Systems, without evidence of any serious irregularities. Dominion has said it “denies claims about any vote switching or alleged software issues with our voting systems.”

Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security ncy, a federal ncy that oversees U.S. election security, said in a statement last week that “vember 3rd election was most secure in American history.” ncy said, ”re is evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

John Bolton, a former Trump national security viser, said it was important for Republican Party leers to explain to voters that Trump did lose and that his claims of election fraud are baseless. Bolton left ministration last year. He says he resigned; Trump says he fired Bolton.

“I think as every day goes by, it’s clearer and clearer re isn’t any evidence. But if Republican voters are only hearing Donald Trump’s misrepresentations, it’s t surprising that y believe it," Bolton said on ABC's “This Week." “It’s critical for or Republican leers to stand up and explain what actually happened. Donald Trump lost what by any evidence we have so far was a free and fair election."

Having ne of that was Rudy Giuliani, president's personal attorney who is helping le Trump's national legal front on election challenge. In a television appearance that Trump previewed on Twitter after his morning tweets, Giuliani denied Trump was conceding — “, , , far from it.” “I guess,'' Giuliani told Fox News Channel's ”Sunday Morning Futures," “you would call it sarcastic.”