WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Thursday admitted, for the first time in his own words, that President-elect Joe Biden’s administration would take charge on Jan. 20.
Without mentioning Biden by name, Trump in a nearly three-minute video said “a new administration will be inaugurated on January 20th.”
Trump, who had repeatedly vowed never to concede to Biden, backed dozens of fruitless lawsuits and flooded his Twitter account with baseless claims of voter fraud.
His refusal to accept the election results culminated in a deadly riot on Wednesday, when swarms of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and derailed congressional proceedings to tally electors’ votes and confirm Biden’s win.
“Now tempers must be cooled, and calm restored. We must get on with the business of America,” Trump said in his first address to the nation following the riots that gripped Washington.
“My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power,” the president added.
Biden’s victory was projected by all major news outlets in mid-November and confirmed by Electoral College votes in mid-December. The Republican president has falsely insisted he won in a “landslide,” asserting his reelection was stolen through massive electoral fraud.
The president, who was blocked from Twitter for 12 hours on Wednesday, briefly spoke about the pandemonium at the U.S. Capitol.
“To those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country. And to those who broke the law, you will pay,” Trump says in the video.
Those rioters descended on the Capitol building directly after Trump, at a rally outside the White House, heaped pressure on Vice President Mike Pence and other Republicans to attempt to overturn the election results.
“We want to go back and we want to get this right. Because we are going to have somebody in there that should not be in there and our country will be destroyed and we’re not going to stand for that,” Trump told his followers at that rally.
As protesters sieged the Capitol, Trump, who had returned to the White House after his speech told supporters in a tweeted video “you have to go home now.”
He did not condemn the violence and continued to falsely claim he won the election. Trump also sympathized with and flattered the rioters, shirking widespread calls to denounce the violence. Twitter later removed that tweet and locked the president’s account.
At least four people died, and dozens of injuries were reported, as a result of the invasion. The White House on Thursday expressed sympathy over the deaths and injuries.
Trump in the video said he “immediately” deployed members of the National Guard to the Capitol to contain the unrest. But The New York Times reported that the president had initially rejected requests to mobilize those troops.
On Thursday, Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy said the intelligence law and Defense officials had prior to the riot that rocked Washington “was all over the board.”
“There were estimates of 80,000 there were estimates around 20 to 25. So getting back to just the pure intelligence. It was all over the board,” McCarthy explained when asked about preparations for crowd control.
“It was very hard to make that determination of what you’re dealing with,” he told reporters on a call, adding that the Defense department relied on law enforcement threat assessments.
Through the weekend, 6,200 National Guard personnel will deploy to the nation’s capital and remain in the region for a minimum of 30 days.
The month-long mobilization ensures that the National Guard members will be on hand for the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Biden.
It is typical for the National Guard to be present for inaugurations, and more than 7,000 troops were mobilized for Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
