Claims from President Donald Trump and his campaign of widespread voter fraud are not valid "without providing any evidence" and the president should do the "right thing" and concede the race if he is not the winner once the votes are all counted, former Vice President Al Gore believes.
"The election is over with, the campaign is over with," Gore, who in the 2000 race conceded during a lengthy legal battle, told NBC News Thursday. "All that remains is to count the vote."
And if Trump doesn't win after that happens, it "would be good for our country," for him to step away, said Gore.
"We are in some ways divided and we absolutely face the need to try to come together," said Gore. "We face the COVID-19 pandemic. We have to get on with solving the climate crisis. We’ve got to lift the economy in a sustainable way to get things moving again. And that requires pulling people together. I'm very happy that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are really focused on that task.”
Gore said this year's race is far different from his own, as Biden has several ways to secure a victory.
The former vice president conceded his race on Dec. 13, 2000, to Republican George W. Bush, after it came down to a thin vote margin in Florida followed by a long legal battle that ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court over recounting. Bush took Florida by just 537 votes, giving him the electoral votes to win the White House.
"The most important principle that I defended 20 years ago, that Joe Biden and many others are defending tonight is, let's count every legally cast vote and obey the will of the American people," said Gore. "You know, I looked at the people standing in line to vote in the middle of a pandemic...they're heroes and they're redeeming the promise of America.”
Gore added that he stepped back because there is a thin line between a Supreme Court ruling and violence in the streets.
"I've heard the president say that if he doesn't win, there may be this, that and the other," he said. "Nobody should be inciting violence. That's dishonoring the mandate of the American people to make this choice."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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