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East Oregonian
Friday, October 21, 2016
Trump: I’ll accept election results — if I win
DELAWARE, Ohio (AP)
— Mocking his critics, Donald
Trump pledged Thursday to
fully accept the outcome of
next month’s presidential elec-
tion — if he wins. The Repub-
lican said he reserved the right
to contest questionable results,
deepening his unsubstantiated
assertions that the race against
Hillary Clinton could be
rigged against him.
Trump’s comments came a
day after his stunning refusal
in the inal presidential debate
to say whether he would
concede to Clinton if he loses.
His resistance, threatening
to undermine the essence of
American democracy, was
roundly rejected by fellow
Republicans.
Arizona Sen. John McCain,
the 2008 GOP nominee, called
the peaceful transfer of power
“the pride of our country.”
“I didn’t like the outcome
of the 2008 election. But I had
a duty to concede, and I did so
without reluctance,” McCain
said in a lengthy statement.
“A concession isn’t just an
exercise in graciousness. It is
an act of respect for the will of
the American people, a respect
that is every American leader’s
irst responsibility.”
With the presidential race
slipping away from him,
AP Photo/ Evan Vucci
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump
gestures as he arrives to speak at a campaign rally at
the Delaware County Fair Thursday in Ohio.
Trump has repeatedly raised
the specter of a rigged election,
despite no evidence of wide-
spread voter fraud heading
toward Election Day or in
previous presidential contests.
His top advisers and running
mate Mike Pence have tried to
soften his comments, only to
watch helplessly as he plunges
ahead.
Asked in Wednesday’s
debate if he would accept the
election results and concede
to Clinton if he loses, Trump
said: “I will tell you at the time.
I will keep you in suspense.”
Clinton slammed Trump’s
comments as “horrifying,”
and fellow Democrats piled
on Thursday.
“That undermines our
democracy,”
President
Barack Obama said while
campaigning for Clinton in
Florida. “Our democracy
depends on people knowing
their vote matters.”
His wife, irst lady
Michelle Obama, told 7,000
Clinton supporters in Republi-
can-voting Arizona Thursday
that Trump was threatening to
“ignore our voices and reject
the outcome of this election.”
She said that’s the same as
“threatening the very idea of
America itself.”
TRIAL: ‘The people have to insist
that the government is not our master’
Continued from 1A
defendants as mere protesters who
should not have been feared.
“I just sat through ive weeks
of a trial about threatening federal
employees without hearing a single
threat,” he said.
The prosecution returned ire in
its rebuttal, saying it did not matter
whether occupiers actually impeded
employees, but rather that they
intended to do so.
“Everyone had a different role in
this conspiracy,” said Assistant U.S.
Attorney Craig Gabriel.
This came following closing argu-
ments from Ryan Bundy, Schindler,
and attorneys representing Shawna
Cox, David Fry, Jeff Banta and Neil
Wampler.
Bundy, who is representing
himself, was passionate and occa-
sionally emotional. He defended all
occupiers’ actions at the refuge, his
own in Robert “LaVoy” Finicum’s
truck during the Jan. 26 trafic stop,
and even invoked Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.
“I ask you to enter a verdict of not
guilty on all counts,” Bundy told the
jury, “not just for me, but for all of us.”
Bundy argued it is in the govern-
ment’s interest to put down the occu-
pation because they see it as a threat to
power. On Tuesday, Marcus Mumford
presented a list of government
witnesses, noting the vast majority of
them worked for the government in
some capacity.
The defense points to this as a law
in the prosecution’s case.
“They’re all paid to administer
power,” Bundy said, later adding,
“The people have to insist that the
government is not our master; they are
our servants.”
Bundy said the occupation had
“nothing to do with impeding and
preventing the employees of the
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.”
“We did not know their names
… we did not know whose seats we
were sitting in,” Bundy said. “And we
didn’t care.”
Acknowledging the callousness of
his statement, Bundy said their cause
was something bigger than taking over
a federally-owned bird sanctuary.
Bundy maintained the defendants
were nonviolent, despite the presence
of irearms throughout the occupation.
Bundy, who did not take the witness
stand at trial, said though he had a
weapon in Finicum’s truck, he only
took it out of its holster to put it on
the loor in the backseat. In a video
of the trafic stop ilmed by fellow
occupier Shawna Cox, Bundy can be
seen holding the weapon.
“Despite being shot at numerous
times, despite being shot myself, I
still did not return ire,” Bundy said
of the trafic stop. Bundy was arrested
during that stop and sustained an
injury to his arm, although it has not
been oficially determined if a bullet
or a piece of shrapnel hit him.
Remaining defense attorneys tried
to poke holes in the prosecution’s case,
whether it pertained to their client’s
particular case or the occupation as a
whole.
Matt Schindler accused law
enforcement of helping to fuel the
occupation by limiting engagement
with those at the refuge. Schindler
called the roadside meeting between
Bundy and Harney County Sheriff
David Ward a photo op.
Ward treated Bundy “like he was
some kind of police dignitary,” rather
than someone wanted for illegal
activity, Schindler said.
AUSA Craig Gabriel said it was
impractical for the defense to suggest
the FBI needed to ask occupiers to
leave in order for them to do so.
“Just play that out in your mind
if the FBI had rolled up and said,
‘Hey, guys, time to go,’” Gabriel said,
pointing to the 34 weapons and 16,000
rounds of ammunition recovered from
the refuge.
Trump’s
comments
overshadowed his attempts
to diminish Clinton’s credi-
bility during the debate. He
entered the contest desperate
to reshape the race and attract
new voters who are deeply
skeptical of his brash temper-
ament and itness for ofice,
but it appeared unlikely he
accomplished those goals.
Campaigning Thursday in
must-win Ohio, Trump tried
to make light of the situation.
“I would like to promise
and pledge to all of my voters
and supporters and to all
of the people of the United
States that I will totally accept
the results of this great and
historic presidential election,”
he said. After letting that
vow hang in the air for a few
seconds, he added, “If I win.”
The Republican nominee
said he would accept “a clear
election result” but reserved
his right to “contest or ile a
legal challenge” if he loses.
He brushed off the likelihood
of that happening with a
conident prediction that
“we’re not going to lose.”
Yet numerous Republican
leaders concede Trump is
heading for defeat barring
a signiicant shift in the
campaign’s closing days. The
GOP’s top concern now is
salvaging its majority in the
Senate, followed closely by
worries over the Republicans’
once comfortable grip on the
House.
“The landscape has gotten
a lot tougher for Republicans
in the House,” said Liesl
Hickey, a Republican strate-
gist involved some of those
races. In Pennsylvania, Sen.
Pat Toomey said Trump’s
comments were “irrespon-
sible.”
Maine Gov. Paul LePage
called Trump’s comments an
“absolute stupid move” and
advised him to “take your
licks and let’s move on.”
U.S. elections are run
by local elected oficials —
Republicans, in many of the
most competitive states.
Trump’s campaign pointed
to Al Gore and George W.
Bush in 2000 as an example
of why it would be premature
for Trump to say he’d acqui-
esce on Nov. 8. That election,
which played out for weeks
until the Supreme Court
weighed in, didn’t center on
allegations of fraud, but on
proper vote-counting after an
extremely close outcome in
Florida led to a mandatory
recount.
Trump tried to turn
the tables on Clinton by
accusing her of “cheating”
and suggesting she should
“resign from the race.” He
cited a hacked email that
showed her campaign was
tipped off about a question
she’d be asked in a CNN
town hall meeting during the
Democratic primary.
“Can you imagine if I got
the questions? They would
call for the re-establishment
of the electric chair, do you
agree?” Trump said at a rally
in Ohio.
Trump’s effort to shift
the conversation back to
Clinton focused on an email
from longtime Democratic
operative Donna Brazile
to Clinton’s campaign in
March with the subject line
“From time to time I get the
questions in advance.” It
contained the wording of a
death penalty question that
Brazile suggested Clinton
would be asked.
Brazile, now the acting
Democratic
National
Committee chairwoman, was
a CNN contributor at the time
she sent the email, one of
thousands disclosed publicly
by WikiLeaks after Clinton’s
campaign chairman’s emails
were hacked. Clinton’s
campaign has said Russia was
behind the hack.
POLITICS: White women have
overtaken men in earning college degrees
Continued from 1A
in hushed watercooler conver-
sations and boisterous barroom
exchanges and, most of all,
in the course of a presidential
campaign in which Trump has
become their champion and
their hope.
At this moment in American
history, to be white and male
means, for many, to feel centu-
ries of privilege and values
slipping away. To many others,
the notion of white men being
marginalized is ludicrous, their
history a study in privilege. But
data show some real losses,
even as they maintain advan-
tages:
• Whites’ household net
worth fell dramatically in
the Great Recession. (But
the declines of blacks and
Hispanics were far larger, and
whites still have an average net
worth about 13 times greater
than blacks and 10 times greater
than Hispanics.)
• White home ownership
is down from a decade ago.
(But black and Hispanic home
ownership, already lower,
dropped at a far sharper rate.)
• White women have over-
taken men in earning college
degrees. (But white men still
hold a big educational advan-
tage over blacks and Hispanics.)
• The number of incarcerated
white men has ballooned. (But
black and Hispanic men remain
far more likely to be jailed.)
• Fueled by suicides, drug
overdoses and alcohol-related
illnesses,
mortality
rates
for middle-age whites have
increased even as they continue
to fall among middle-age blacks
and Hispanics. (Still, white men
continue to have a longer life
expectancy than black men,
though shorter than Hispanics.)
No one cites metrics like
these on air this day, but it’s
clear some of the listeners have
felt their toll.
Stephen Sanders is 49 and
was once an X-ray technician.
He says his skill and seniority
were ignored when he applied
for a supervisory job that ulti-
mately went to a black candi-
date. When Trump announced
his candidacy, Sanders was
thrilled to hear someone give
voice to his feelings about
immigration and outsourcing
and restoring opportunity for
guys like him. He felt he was
seeing decades of painful
history starting to be reversed.
He wants to live a better life
than his father, but he doesn’t.
“The theme about the
American experience is to get
better and to do more,” he says.
“I’ve never experienced it. I’ve
always struggled.”
Jon Hayes also dials in this
day. He is 55 and once owned a
construction business. It folded
and he lost his house, he said,
when it became impossible to
compete against the cheap labor
of immigrants who came to the
U.S. illegally. He fell back on
a career in auto mechanics and
hoped to retire this year, but has
put it off. A grown son still lives
at home, and for all the setbacks
Hayes has had, he believes he’s
still able to say something that
he’s not sure the 29-year-old
will: He achieved a better life
than his parents.
“I just don’t think the oppor-
tunity is out there now that there
used to be,” he says.
They are far from alone
in their pessimism. A Kaiser
Family
Foundation-CNN
poll released in September
compared
white
college
graduates and the white, black
and Hispanic working class.
Working-class whites were
least likely to say that they’re
satisied with their inluence in
politics, that the federal govern-
ment represents their views, and
that they believe their children
will achieve a better standard
of living than them. They were
most likely to say it has become
harder to get ahead inancially
and ind good jobs in recent
years, and to blame economic
problems on the federal govern-
ment and immigrants working
here illegally.
Roberts, 53, sees the hurt
across the U.S., but dismisses
the idea of white privilege. His
parents were never in his life,
he says. He was left with grand-
parents and, when they grew too
old, he was emancipated at age
15 and landed at a boys’ ranch.
He went on to earn an MBA and
law degree and shifted 22 years
ago to begin a life in radio.
He irst delivered his “I
want my country back” rant,
impromptu, about two years
ago on one of those days when
his listeners’ despair was over-
whelming. He keeps an MP3
of the audio on his computer
and airs it every now and again
when it seems right. He clicks
the ile this afternoon and it
begins to play.
“I want my country back,
and the only way, the only way
I’m ever going to be able to get
this country back is if I reach
out to the brothers and sisters
that all feel the very same way
and say, ‘Hell, no, you can’t
have the country.’
“Stop it! How many different
ways do we say stop it!?”
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