© Reuters/Edited by The Daily Beast
When
Al Gore won the popular vote by more than half a million, but lost the Supreme Court vote by 5 to 4, he gracefully conceded the 2000 election to George W. Bush โ something Donald Trump would apparently be loath to do this time around even if Joe Biden beats him decisively in both the Electoral College and raw ballots on November 3.
Gore insisted Tuesday โ in an online interview with Reuters Editor in Chief Stephen J. Adler, introduced by Reuters Editor at Large Sir Harold Evans โ that he's had no second thoughts about his concession speech two decades ago because there was zero alternative.
"When you say there were potentially some other moves," he told Adler, "I researched them, and it turns out there's no intermediate step between a final Supreme Court decision and violent revolution."
But what if Trump declares the results illegitimate, Adler asked, and demands to stay on as president? Or does Gore believe the former reality star would concede defeat in the same spirit that he did?
"I don't know," Bill Clinton's former vice president โ these days a fit-looking, silver-haired 72-year-old mega-millionaire โ answered with a mirthless chuckle. "But it's important to say that it's really not up to him. I hear people saying, 'Well, would he accept that decision?' Well, it doesn't matter because it's not up to him. Because at noon on January 20th, if a new president is elected... the police force, the Secret Service, the military, all of the executive branch officers, will respond to the command and the direction of the new president."
Comment: More from RT: