Donald Trump directs his Sunday morning Twitter rant at #Recount2016

2025-04-28 08:23:18admin

Another Sunday, another instance of President-elect Donald Trump using Twitter to wade into a political minefield.

His target: Campaign adversary Hillary Clinton. Although the defeated Democratic candidate has yet to weigh in personally on the Jill Stein-led move to recount voting results in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, Marc Elias, the general counsel for Clinton's 2016 campaign, signaled on Sunday that he'll support and participate in any actions taken.

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Although it's not entirely clear, Trump's tweets are likely a response to that announcement. Read them and decide for yourself.

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The hostile attitude toward Clinton is confusing in light of the bigger picture. Stein's position all along has been that the #Recount2016 efforts are focused on ensuring election integrity in a frequently criticized system.

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The statement from the Clinton campaign, via Elias, echoed that desire. He maintained that there's no evidence of the election results being hacked to tilt in Trump's favor, but wants Clinton's millions of supporters to rest easy in the knowledge that their votes were counted.

"[N]ow that a recount is underway, we believe we have an obligation to the more than 64 million Americans who cast ballots for Hillary Clinton to participate in ongoing proceedings to ensure that an accurate vote count will be reported," Elias wrote.

Trump's tweets -- which, it should be said, mischaracterize some of Clinton's earlier statements -- also overlooks an important fact about the recount: it's crowd-supported and voter-funded.

Stein has been collecting donations from recount supporters since before Thanksgiving, and has (at the time of this writing) managed to generate more than $6 million toward a $7 million target. This is the very essence of democracy: Voters are speaking -- with their wallets, in this case -- to show support for something they believe in.

Trump would do well to remember that and focus more on addressing concerns about his geopolitical gaffes, his business conflicts of interest, his unclear commitment to combating climate change, and his troubling political appointees.