Obama Says It's Time Trump Concedes Election To Biden

Former President Obama in an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes Sunday thinks it is time that President Trump concedes the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, saying this should have been done within the first two days after Nov. 3rd while giving his personal advice to his successor telling him “think beyond your own ego” in order to “put country first.”

“I think it was time for him to concede probably the day after the election or at the latest two days after the election,” Obama told 60 Minutes when asked about his view of Trump refusing to concede. “When you look at the numbers, objectively, Joe Biden will have won handily. There is no scenario in which any of those states would turn the other way and certainly not enough to reverse the outcome of the election.”

Presidents, he maintained, are “public servant” who are by design to be “temporary occupants” of the White House.

“A president is a public servant. They are temporary occupants of the office, by design,” Obama said. “And when your time is up, then it is your job to put the country first and think beyond your own ego, and your own interests, and your own disappointments.”

“My advice to President Trump is, if you want at this late stage in the game to be remembered as somebody who put country first, it’s time for you to do the same thing,” Obama added.

Obama, who is promoting his new memoir “A Promised Land” that is scheduled to come out on Tuesday said there will be “consequence” with the lack of transition not moving forward in terms of foreign policy.

“I think our adversaries have seen us weakened, not just as a consequence of this election, but over the last several years,” Obama said. “We have these cleavages in the body politic that they’re convinced they can exploit. There is an old adage that partisan politics should stop at the water’s edge. That when it comes to our foreign policy, that it is the United States of America, not the divided States of America.”

Asked by host Scott Pelley on Trump’s claim of widespread election fraud, Obama said he was even more “troubled” by prominent members of the Republican party in “humoring” the president’s effort on this issue, emphasizing how “dangerous” the allegations are that state will “delegitimizing” democracy.

“The president doesn’t like to lose and — never admits loss,” Obama said. “I’m more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials who clearly know better are going along with this, are humoring him in this fashion. It is one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming Biden administration, but democracy generally. And that’s a dangerous path.”

Obama went on to compare Trump’s allegations to dictators who attempt to justify their cause to stay in power.

“I think that there has been this sense over the last several years that literally anything goes and is justified in order to get power. And that’s not unique to the United States,” he said. “There are strong men and dictators around the world who think that, ‘I can do anything to stay in power. I can kill people. I can throw them in jail. I can run phony elections. I can suppress journalists.’ But that’s not who we’re supposed to be.”

Despite the results of the presidential election which has not yet been formally certified, some states are currently counting ballots while Georgia is conducting a recount, news outlets projected Biden the winner of the 2020 election.

Regarding a line from his book “Our democracy seems to be teetering on the brink of a crisis,” Obama clarified that he referenced it to his successor, citing his disregard of “basic institutional norms” and for accelerating a lackluster in truth-telling, calling it a “truth decay.”

Trump has refused to concede and his campaign along with states GOP party are challenging the outcomes in several key battleground states that saw Trump leading in the late night of Election Day only for the results to jump heavily towards Biden hours later. Some of the lawsuits brought forth have been rejected while some are still pending.