Mike Pompeo speaks of ‘smooth transition to a second Trump administration’
- US secretary of state questions integrity of the presidential election and floats the unsupported assertion that some votes were fraudulent
- Joe Biden says Trump’s refusal to concede won’t slow transition process
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that “there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration” and dismissed as “ridiculous” a suggestion that the president’s refusal to concede after his election loss undercuts the message that Washington’s top diplomat delivers to other countries.
Since most US news outlets, including the usually Trump-friendly Fox News, called the election in favour of Democrat Joe Biden on Saturday, Pompeo joined Trump and many of his allies in suggesting, without evidence, that unlawfully case ballots must be weeded out before a result can be declared.
Pompeo made the remarks at a State Department news briefing in Washington.
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Pompeo says there will be ‘a smooth transition to a second Trump administration’
“It took us 37-plus days in the election back in 2000,” he said, referring to the contest that ushered George W Bush into his first term after a dispute over vote counting in the swing state of Florida. “Conducted a successful transition then. I’m very confident that will count and we must count every legal vote we must make sure that any vote that wasn’t lawful will not be counted.”
Biden leads the popular vote count by almost 5 million and in the Electoral College by 290 to 214, with 270 votes needed for victory, according to Associated Press.
Besides Pompeo’s comments, there are other signs that Trump is digging in against calls for him to begin the transition of the US government to the president-elect, who was declared the winner after vote tallies in key battleground states including Michigan and Pennsylvania swung in his favour late last week.
Citing anonymous sources, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the White House budget office has instructed federal agencies to prepare for the Trump administration’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year, which is usually issued in February. The next president will be inaugurated on January 20.
