Jake Tapper: It Doesn’t Matter If Trump Won’t Concede, He’ll Be ‘Physically Escorted From the Building’ If He ‘Refuses To Acknowledge Reality’

With the final votes coming in and decision desks starting to call the 2020 presidential race for Joe Biden, CNN’s Jake Tapper addressed what might happen if President Donald Trump refuses to concede, quipping that he would be “physically escorted from the building if necessary.”

Decision Desk HQ called Pennsylvania, and with its 20 electoral votes, the presidency for Biden earlier Friday morning. So far, CNN has not called the race, but notes that Biden is ahead in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, and his lead steadily increasing.

Tapper noted that it is “incredibly difficult to defeat an incumbent president,” and has only happened four times in [recent] American history until this year. His colleague Abby Phillip concurred, noting that Trump was a particularly challenging opponent, “a political force” who was able “to bring out voters that even Republicans didn’t think were out there.”

Phillip noted that Biden was “leading in almost all of the states that are uncounted,” and for Trump to “turn that around is going to be a herculean effort,” so while their network had not called the race, the “bar is very high” for Trump to win.

“It is uncalled,” Dana Bash noted, “but we all know because we have covered campaigns and these moments when a candidate is on the cusp of winning, which means the opponent is on the cusp of losing, a phone call generally happens…It happened four years ago, I remember getting from a source who was with Donald Trump the phone rang and it was Hillary Clinton conceding.”

Bash noted the “unconventional” nature of the election, and added that none of them were really expecting a Trump concession call anytime soon.

“Let’s be honest,” said Tapper, “because a concession is not necessary under the U.S. Constitution.”

“Whether or not Donald Trump acts like an adult if Joe Biden becomes the next president,” he continued, “Joe Biden will become the next president and Donald Trump will be, if it comes down to it, physically escorted from the building…if he just refuses to acknowledge reality.”

Now was the time, Tapper added, for Trump’s White House advisers and Republican leaders to “start preparing President Trump for the bad news, because it looks like that is where we are headed.”

“People have to decide which they love more, the United States of America and the American people or one singular politician.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

[UPDATE 11:58 am] This article has been updated to clarify that an incumbent president had only been defeated four times in recent American history, not all American history. Both the second president, John Adams, and the sixth, his son John Quincy Adams, failed to win re-election, in 1800 and 1828 respectively.