Republican Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker sharply criticized President Donald Trump on Friday for suggesting that there is a national conspiracy afoot to keep him from being reelected.
"At some point, we're in like the 7th or 8th inning of this game," the governor said. "At some point everybody's got to get used to the idea that we need to move forward as a country and deal with all the significant issues we have to deal with here. I think the president's comments that there is some national conspiracy around this aren't supported by any of the facts, and they are damaging to democracy, they cheapen all of those of us who serve in public life and who ran and who were either reelected or defeated based on the will of the people."
"I think the suggestion that this is somehow a conspiracy is bad for democracy," Baker later added.
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As Joe Biden continues to inch closer to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, Trump alleged Thursday that his opponents are "trying to steal" and "trying to rig" the election. He also claimed he won Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. NBC News has projected Biden as the winner in Michigan and the apparent winner in Wisconsin, and Biden is currently leading in Trump in both Pennsylvania and Georgia.
He followed that up on Friday by issuing a statement questioning "the integrity of our entire election process."
"From the beginning we have said that all legal ballots must be counted and all illegal ballots should not be counted, yet we have met resistance to this basic principle by Democrats at every turn," Trump's statement said. "We will pursue this process through every aspect of the law to guarantee that the American people have confidence in our government. I will never give up fighting for you and our nation.”
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Baker pointed out Friday that most of the states where the ballots are still being counted are led by either Republicans or a mix of Republicans and Democrats.
"I've been in a bunch of close elections. The rules are there, and almost every state in the country went through a major overhaul of the way they handled voting after the presidential election of 2000," he said. "People did take a really hard look at the rules, process and procedures."
"I haven't heard anybody say much at all about the fact that we had the highest participation rate in our nation's history in this election," Baker added. "We should be celebrating this. People took it seriously. They came out and they voted. That's a good thing."
