Hillary Clinton tells Joe Biden not to concede election ‘under any circumstances’

Hillary Clinton has urged Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to “not concede under any circumstances,” in November’s presidential election, as she believes the results are “going to drag out,” because of mail-in voting.

Ms Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, told her former aide Jennifer Palmieri on Showtime’s The Circus on Monday, that she believes the Republicans are attempting to “mess up” mail-in voting to gain “a narrow advantage in the electoral college.”

In the interview, Ms Clinton said that Republicans “have a couple of scenarios that they are looking toward. One is messing up absentee balloting. They believe that helps them so that they then get maybe a narrow advantage in the Electoral College on election day.”

The 72-year-old claimed: “In the recent Michigan primary, I was told, in Detroit the Republicans had 40 lawyers challenging absentee, mail-in voting, and a local reporter, talking to one of the lawyers he knew, was told it was a dry run for November.

“So we’ve got to have a massive legal operation, and I know the Biden campaign is working on that.”

President Donald Trump revealed earlier in the month that Democrats are asking for $3.5bn (£2.6bn) to facilitate universal mail-in voting and $25bn (£19bn) to fund the USPS ahead of November’s presidential election.

The service has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic and lost $2.2bn (£1.6bn) between March and June, causing its postmaster general Louis DeJoy to ask Congress for financial support.

However, the president has refused to give the service additional funding and has repeatedly claimed that mail-in voting will lead to widespread fraud in November’s election.

After months of criticising mail-in voting, the president told Chris Wallace of Fox News in late July that he might not accept a losing result in November’s presidential election, because “mail-in voting is going to rig” it.

The week prior, Mr Trump also tweeted without proof: “Mail-In Ballot fraud found in many elections. People are just now seeing how bad, dishonest and slow it is.

“Election results could be delayed for months. No more big election night answers? One per cent not even counted in 2016. Ridiculous!”

Many pundits have suggested that the winner of November’s election will not be declared on the day, due to delays with the anticipated amount of residents voting by mail, according to The Hill.

Speaking on The Circus, Ms Clinton added: “Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances because I think this is going to drag out, and eventually, I do believe he will win if we don’t give an inch and if we are as focused and relentless as the other side is.”

On Monday, at the Republican National Convention, president Trump claimed that the Democrats are using the pandemic to steal the election by pushing for mail-in voting.

“What they’re doing is using Covid to steal an election,” the president claimed. “They’re using Covid to defraud the American people, all of our people, of a fair and free election. We can’t do that.”