US President Donald Trump is seen on TV from a video message released on Twitter, seen on January 6, 2020 in an empty Brady Briefing Room in the White House in Washington, DC.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump said early Thursday he was prepared to allow an “orderly transition” of power, minutes after Congress formally confirmed the election of Joe Biden as president.
A statement from the president on Twitter via Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Dan Scavino reiterated unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud but included the reversal.
“Although I completely disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts confirm me, there will be an orderly transition on January 20. I have always said that we will continue our fight to ensure that only legitimate votes count. “This represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s just the beginning of our struggle to make America great again!”
The statement follows dramatic scenes on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, with Trump supporters storming the building, forcing a lockout and lawmakers seeking refuge.
Overnight, Congress reconvened and formally confirmed Biden’s election. The confirmation comes after the House of Representatives and the Senate, in two separate votes in both chambers, overwhelmingly rejected the attempts of some Republicans to object to the acceptance of the Biden elections in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Biden, a Democrat, and his candidate, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, garnered 306 votes in the Electoral College, 36 more than were needed to secure a White House victory. Trump, a Republican, received 232 votes.
Trump has repeatedly refused to concede the election to Biden, making numerous baseless allegations of voter fraud without providing evidence.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the outgoing president was accused of inciting the scenes of chaos in Washington DC, after urging his supporters to march to the Capitol.
Scenes of angry pro-Trump protesters gathered on the steps of the Capitol before collapsing into the building and sweeping through the halls of Congress, sitting at lawmakers’ desks and posing for photos, draped in Trump flags and merchandise , shocked the world.
In turn, Biden condemned the storms of the Capitol, saying he was “shocked and saddened” by what he described as an uprising.
“It’s no different. It’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on sedition and it should end now,” Biden said in a speech on Wednesday when he asked Trump to tell his supporters to go home.
Trump later tweeted a video in which he told supporters ‘you have to go home now’, but again made false allegations that the election was stolen, which led to his Twitter account being temporarily frozen.
—CNBC’s Dan Mangan, Jacob Pramuk and Kevin Breuninger contributed coverage to this story.