Adam Schiff has said that former President Donald Trump will have “more reason” to challenge the 2024 election results than he did in 2020.
“He has more reason to contest it than he did before, not because of any flaw in the election, but because Donald Trump believes, and perhaps with reason, that if he doesn’t succeed at the ballot box, he may be going to jail,” the California Democrat said during an interview on NBC‘s Meet the Press on Sunday.
“He’s going to challenge the results, and we saw tragically what happened when he did that four years earlier,” Schiff continued. “And what’s more. We see him laying the same foundation to fraudulently challenge the results once again, putting up the same big lies.”
Following his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump has continually claimed that he did not lose the election, and repeated these claims last week at a rally in Michigan. No credible evidence of widespread voter fraud in the election has been found.
Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, participates in a town hall at the Crown Center Arena October 4, 2024 in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Democratic Senate candidate U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) speaks during his primary election night gathering at The Avalon on March 05, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Schiff remarked on NBC’s Meet The Press that Trump has ‘more reason,’ to contest the 2024 election results.
Win McNamee and Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Schiff’s comments follow a 165-page filing by special counsel Jack Smith being made public last week by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in the election fraud case against the former president.
Smith’s filing included a number of allegations, including that Trump pleaded with then-Vice President Mike Pence for him to not certify the election, and he was “incensed,” when Pence refused. When concerns were raised over Pence’s safety, as rioters broke into the Capitol, Trump was allegedly unconcerned about his vice president.
“That was the most shocking part to me,” said Schiff, who is currently a congressman but is running for the Senate.
“It just reaffirmed I think what we know about Donald Trump, and that is he cares about no one except himself, he cares about nothing, not the constitution, not our institutions, not the Capitol, not his own colleagues, nothing but himself.”
Newsweek has reached out to the Schiff outside of normal working hours for comment
Last week, during a White House press briefing, Biden said that he is confident that the upcoming election will be “free and fair,” but said that he was concerned about the transfer of power being peaceful on account of Trump’s words and actions following his loss in 2020.
“This is the legacy of Donald Trump, which is, we now cannot go into an election with full confidence that the results will be peaceful,” said Schiff on Meet the Press.
Newsweek has reached out to the Trump campaign outside of normal working hours for comment.
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