Former President Trump declined to commit to accepting Wisconsin’s November election results in an interview Wednesday, the latest instance of Trump hedging over whether he will contest the results of the election.
“If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results,” Trump told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview Wednesday. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.
“But if everything’s honest, which we anticipate it will be — a lot of changes have been made over the last few years — but if everything’s honest, I will absolutely accept the results,” he added.
Trump falsely claimed to the outlet that he “won the election in Wisconsin” in 2020, doubling down on his disproven claims of widespread fraud in the Badger State and elsewhere. President Biden won Wisconsin by 21,000 votes in 2020.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has repeatedly declined to commit to accepting the election results dating back to the 2020 race. After losing to Biden, Trump repeatedly claimed there was widespread fraud, though those allegations were dismissed in numerous court cases. Rioters then stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to stop the certification of Biden’s victory.
Despite the violence that followed the 2020 election, Trump has wavered about accepting the 2024 results.
“If I think it’s an honest election, I would be honored to,” Trump said in a 2023 CNN town hall when asked about accepting the 2024 results.
In an interview with Time magazine that published this week, Trump did not shut down the potential for political violence after November’s election if he doesn’t win, saying “it depends” on the fairness of the vote.
“I think we’re going to win,” Trump said. “And if we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election. I don’t believe they’ll be able to do the things that they did the last time. I don’t think they’ll be able to get away with it. And if that’s the case, we’re gonna win in record-setting fashion.”
Trump and the Republican National Committee (RNC) have invested heavily in election integrity efforts ahead of the 2024 election, including through a program that will train poll watchers and have attorneys ready to respond to any potential claims of fraud.
The former president told supporters in Michigan on Wednesday that he needed a commanding victory in November so that the election was “too big to rig.”
The Biden campaign, responding to Trump’s comments about accepting the election results, called the former president “a danger to the Constitution and a threat to our democracy.”
“President Biden has said, ‘You can’t love your country only when you win.’ But for Donald Trump, his campaign for revenge and retribution reigns supreme,” campaign spokesperson James Singer said in a statement.
“In his own words, he is promising to rule as a dictator on ‘day one,’ use the military against the American people, punish those who stand against him, condone violence done on his behalf, and put his own quest for power ahead of what is best for America,” Singer added.
Updated at 11:34 a.m. EDT