Obama: Trump election challenge ‘delegitimising’ democracy

Former President Barack Obama says he is “troubled” by Republicans “going along” with President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and argues it is “delegitimising” democracy.

“They appear to be motivated, in part, because the president doesn’t like to lose and never admits loss,” the former president told CBS News’s 60 Minutes in an interview to air on Sunday night.

“I’m more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials who clearly know better are going along with this, are humouring him in this fashion,” Obama continued. “It is one more step in delegitimising not just the incoming Biden administration, but democracy generally. And that’s a dangerous path.”

Barack Obama tells Scott Pelley Republicans who “go along with” the President’s claims of election fraud put democracy on “a dangerous path.”

The former president appears in his first interview about his new book “A Promised Land,” Sunday on 60 Minutes. https://t.co/S7MEAx3F8j pic.twitter.com/CRx6XkT0Na

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 12, 2020

Since Joe Biden was declared president-elect on Saturday, Trump has yet to concede, as is tradition. His campaign has also filed numerous lawsuits challenging votes and the administration of the election in several key states while also backing recounts in states such as Georgia and Wisconsin.

While some Republicans have congratulated Biden and are recognising him as the next president, many have held off and instead are either outright supporting Trump’s election challenges or urging patience as the process plays out.

Obama spoke to CBS to promote his new memoir, A Promised Land, which will be released on Tuesday.

In the book, the former president talks about why he thinks his presidency – and his race – were the foundation for Trump’s own election in 2016.

“It was as if my very presence in the White House had triggered a deep-seated panic, a sense that the natural order had been disrupted,” Obama writes, according to excerpts of the book obtained by CNN.

“Which is exactly what Donald Trump understood when he started peddling assertions that I had not been born in the United States and was thus an illegitimate president. For millions of Americans spooked by a Black man in the White House, he promised an elixir for their racial anxiety.”