Trailing in polls amid accusations of sexual misconduct from a host of women over the past week, Republican nominee Donald Trump is slamming the liberal mainstream media more than ever before, accusing it of rigging the presidential election in favour of his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
It is also happening at many polling places, he claimed on Monday, tweeting: “The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary - but also at many polling places – SAD.”
Accusing the media of “putting stories that never happened into news”, he alleged in another tweet that all this was being done “in a coordinated effort with the Clinton campaign”.
But the top figure of the Republican establishment and his bete noire, House Speaker Paul Ryan, is not buying it. “Our democracy relies on confidence in election results, and the Speaker is fully confident the States will carry out this election with integrity,” a Ryan spokesperson said in a statement, stressing Ryan was “fully confident” in the nation’s elections system.
That did not go down well with Trump, who slammed the top Republican, remarking: “The Democrats have a corrupt political machine pushing crooked Hillary Clinton. We have Paul Ryan, always fighting the Republican nominee.”
“Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going onIJ So naive!” Trump tweeted, adding: “We have all got to come together and win this election. We can't have four more years of Obama (or worse!).”
The Clinton campaign is hitting back hard on Trump, with vice presidential running mate Tim Kaine commenting at an election rally in Miami: “Now that he thinks he’s going to lose, he’s going around and saying, ‘Oh, the whole thing’s rigged. It’s just rigged against me. Poor me!’” He urged Clinton supporters to provide her such a victory margin that accusations f a stolen election won’t stick.
Trump’s own running mate Mike Pence refuted suggestions by pundits that the Republican nominee may be preparing ground to explain away his defeat, telling NBC News: “We will absolutely accept the result of the election… But the American people are tired of the obvious bias in the national media. That’s where the sense of a rigged election goes here.”
Pence accused the news media of “an avalanche of continuous negative attacks against my running mate instead of focusing on the real, hard evidence coming out about corruption and pay to play in the Clinton Foundation years”.
Two of Trump’s top surrogates, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, voiced doubts in the fairness of the election. Participating in Sunday talk shows, Giuliani claimed that Democrats could steal a close election by having dead people vote in inner cities. And Gingrich urged Trump voters to monitor polling stations, remarking that while 14 million citizens picked Trump in the Republican primaries, 20 TV executives have “decided to destroy him”.
Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement that while campaigns should be hard-fought and elections hard-won, what is fundamental about the American electoral system is that it is free, fair and open to the people.