Brian Karem on Asking Trump About Peaceful Transfer of Power: ‘Very Simple Question… He Scared People’

Playboy Magazine White House correspondent Brian Karem spoke about the political fallout he observed ever since President Donald Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the 2020 election.

Karem created a media flashpoint last week when he asked Trump if he would facilitate a peaceful transferral to Joe Biden, and the president wouldn’t make that commitment as he continued to rail against voting by mail. As he spoke about all of this with CNN’s Brian Stelter, Karem remarked that Trump has been sowing doubt about the integrity of America’s elections for years, but it was “sobering” to see the president not committing to peacefully stepping down and making way for his possible successor.

“I thought it would be a very simple question to answer,” Karem said. “I thought he would say ‘Are you kidding me? Of course it’s going to be peaceful.’ And that would have been dismissed and I would have been called all kinds of nasty names, but it was his answer to the question that prompted the multi-day media frenzy over it because he scared people. He frightened people.”

Karem moved on by shrugging off White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany sneering at him as “that Playboy reporter.” He further said the whole incident shows “the president and his administration are nothing more than high school debaters and not worthy of the field in which they are having this endeavor.”

Watch above, via CNN.