Obama's Advice To Trump On 60 Minutes Raises Eyebrows
For a scholarly lawyer who likes to do things by the book, it can't be easy for former President Barack Obama to see how the aftermath of this year's presidential elections are playing out. After all, when Donald Trump won the elections in 2016, Obama called his successor to congratulate him at 3 a.m. — even though, as 60 Minutes points out, Trump had lost the popular vote and won the electoral college by less than 1 percent in three states. Obama says: "...a president is a public servant. They are temporary occupants of the office, by design. 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 to Trump: "Time to let go"
While a winner has yet to be officially declared for the November 3rd elections, The New York Times reports Obama's former Vice President, Joe Biden, as having won 306 of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the presidency. Biden is also leading the popular count by more than 5 million votes, with 50.8 percent against incumbent President Donald Trump's 47.2 percent. AP says it appears Trump is now finally acknowledging the fact that Biden won the election, even though in his most recent tweet, Trump wrote: "I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go."
And because also we're long past the time a concession speech and the transition process should have begun to take place, former President Obama says it's time for Trump to let things go. "I think it was time for him to concede probably — the day after the election — or at the latest, two days after the election. 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," he said (via CBS).
"There are traditions Trump needs to uphold" Obama
The former president says there are certain traditions that unfold during the transfer of power on inauguration day, which happened when Donald Trump assumed office four years ago. "The outgoing president congratulates the incoming president, instructs the government and the agencies to cooperate with the new government coming in. You invite the president-elect to the Oval Office And then on inauguration day, the president invites the president-elect to the White House and there's a small reception. And then you drive to the inauguration site, and the outgoing president sits there and is part of the audience as the new president is sworn in. And at that point, the outgoing president is a citizen like everybody else and owes the new president the chance to do their best on behalf of the American people," the former President says.
Is he confident that we'll see the same unfold on January 20th next year? Obama states: "Whether Donald Trump will do the same thing we'll have to see. So far, that's not been his approach. But you know hope springs eternal. There's a promised land out there somewhere."