Trump Refuses to Promise Peaceful Transfer of Power If He Loses Vote

US President Donald Trump declined to promise that he'd be moved on Wednesday.

Power, if he loses the November election, will draw disdain from his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, and even from within his own party.

"Well, we're going to have to see what happens," Trump responded to a White House press conference asking if he is committed to the most fundamental tenet of democratic rule in the United States — peaceful handover of power to change of president, reports AFP.

Biden, who maintains a steady lead over the Republican incumbent in the polls ahead of the November 3 vote, expressed his skepticism.

“What country are we in?” the former vice president said when asked about Trump’s comment by reporters.

“Look, he says the most irrational things. I don’t know what to say.”

Republican Senator Mitt Romney, a frequent but rare party critic of Trump, went further, saying that any hesitation on the core constitution guarantee was “unthinkable and unacceptable.”

“Fundamental to democracy is the peaceful transition of power; without that, there is Belarus,” he tweeted.

‘Get rid’ of ballots

Trump followed up his remarks — unprecedented in modern times for a US president — by resuming his near-daily complaint about the fairness of the election.

Apparently referring to the increased use of mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic, he said: “You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster.”

Trump also argues that mail-in ballots are vulnerable to widespread manipulation and that Democrats are motivated to manipulate the election.

However, there is no proof that the ballots sent by the postal service have ever contributed to major fraud in US elections.

At the press conference, Trump seemed to suggest annulling what are expected to be the huge numbers of mailed-in ballots, noting that in such a scenario, he would remain in power.

“Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There’ll be a continuation,” he said.

Trump's current assertion that there can be no free and fair presidential election came as pressure grew on his proposal to add a young, right-wing justice to the Supreme Court.

Trump is expected to appoint a substitute Saturday for late Liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last week.

Its Republican Party, which has a majority in the Senate, is then expected to confirm the candidate easily.

If they succeed, the nine-year justice court will possibly have been overwhelmingly pro-conservative for years to come.

Democrats are crying foul, arguing that the procedure should wait until the election results are established, allowing the winner to form the Supreme Court.

With Trump and the Republicans introducing a variety of court cases to the use of mail-in ballots, the odds of a disputed election outcome are considered high.

On Wednesday, Trump said he thinks the election “will end up in the Supreme Court.”