Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump said for the first time Thursday he will leave office if the Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden but made clear he's not prepared to concede.
"Certainly I will, and you know that," Trump said when asked by a reporter about leaving the White House if Biden is declared the winner on December 14. "I will and, you know that."
"It's going to be a very hard thing to concede because we know there was massive fraud," Trump said without evidence.
"As to whether or not we can get this apparatus moving quickly -- because time isn't on our side, everything else is on our side, facts are on our side, this was a massive fraud."
The President falsely added that if Biden is declared the winner, the Electoral College, "made a mistake, cause this election was a fraud." Pressed on his comments, Trump snapped at the reporter. "Don't talk to me that way. I'm the President of the United States. Don't ever talk to the president that way," he said.
Thursday was the first time Trump has taken questions from reporters since the election.
Since CNN and other outlets projected Biden as the winner earlier this month, Trump has refused to accept the results, instead pushing baseless conspiracies that his second term is being stolen and launching a legal effort to overturn results.
This includes falsely claiming during an election night address that he had already won reelection, that he had already won states that were actually still up in the air at the time and that his opponents were perpetuating a fraud.
In response, Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement earlier this month, "the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House."
To this point, the Trump campaign's lawsuits have been repeatedly dismissed or dropped, and earlier this week, the General Services Administration informed Biden that the Trump administration is ready to begin the formal transition process.
The GSA letter marked the first step the administration has taken to acknowledge Trump's defeat. The President, however, tweeted moments after the letter was reported: "Our case STRONGLY continues, we will keep up the good fight, and I believe we will prevail!"
He echoed that message throughout his rambling news conference Thursday following a Thanksgiving teleconference call with military members -- an event US Presidents traditionally use to boost morale of service members stationed abroad during the holidays and remind the country of their service.
CNN's Betsy Klein contributed to this report.
Europe pushes to rescue Christmas despite sacrifice of other religionsBy Zamira Rahim, CNN
Updated 11:06 AM ET, Thu November 26, 2020
(CNN)2020 has been far from festive, but as the year comes to an end, many of Europe's governments are scrambling to avoid stringent lockdowns over the Christmas holidays.
The push to save the celebration comes despite the fact that other religious festivals -- including Christian ones -- have been marked in a muted fashion in recent months.
The UK government on Tuesday unveiled plans to temporarily relax coronavirus restrictions for five days, from December 23 to 27, allowing up to three households to celebrate together in "Christmas bubbles." This means small groups of family and friends will be able meet in person for what may be the first time in months.
England is currently under its second national lockdown and the UK as a whole has recorded more than 1.5 million Covid-19 cases.
"This year, Christmas will be different," said Prime Minister Boris Johnson. "Many of us are longing to spend time with family and friends, irrespective of our faith or background, and yet we cannot throw caution to the wind. The virus doesn't know that it's Christmas."
The previous day, Johnson cautioned that while the festive period may be "the season to be jolly ... it is also the season to be jolly careful, especially with elderly relatives."
Rules relaxed for ChristmasThe message that stricter autumn rules could lead to a more relaxed Christmas period has been repeated across Europe.
In France, a second national lockdown was imposed at the end of October, but despite non-essential businesses across the country being closed, the government has permitted the sale of Christmas trees, by decree.
A slowdown in the spread of the virus means France's lockdown will begin to ease this weekend, President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday. The restrictions could be lifted further on December 15, if the daily number of cases drops under 5,000 and there are only 2,000-3,000 in hospital ICUs.
"We will therefore once again be able to travel without authorization, including between regions, and spend Christmas with our family," Macron said.
In a speech earlier this autumn, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said Italians could enjoy Christmas if they abided by the country's Covid-19 restrictions. But since then, officials have struck a more cautious note.
Sandra Zampa, an undersecretary at Italy's Ministry of Health, said on November 11 that the government wanted to avoid large Christmas parties. Instead, she said gatherings would likely be limited to close relatives such as parents, children and siblings. "I don't think we can go any further," Zampa said in a local television interview.
The Irish government is set to ease restrictions for nearly two weeks around the Christmas period and is considering allowing up to three households to gather for the holidays, Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar told state broadcaster RTE on Wednesday.
And in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel asked the public to obey social distancing restrictions in October, in order to preserve the country's Christmas celebrations.
"We must do everything to ensure that the virus does not spread in an uncontrolled way. Every day now counts," she said on October 17. "How the winter will be, how our Christmas will be, that will be decided in the coming days and weeks."
German MPs are currently considering a draft proposal which would allow up to 10 people to celebrate Christmas and New Year together, CNN affiliate n-tv reported.
Celebrations shifted onlineChristmas occupies a unique and outsize place in the religious calendar. But since the epidemic began, Passover, Easter, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Rosh Hashanah and Diwali have all been celebrated across Europe.
All were marked quietly, without government debate. None attracted the fervor inspired by the prospect of a pandemic Christmas.
Anjana Singh, 48, runs Amikal, a Hindu community group in Berlin. Singh organized an all-day virtual Diwali celebration to replace the more traditional festivities this November.
"Usually we have a lot of spectators, 500 to 1,000, this is how usually we celebrate Diwali," she told CNN. "In February it was evident that corona was here. So Amikal decided, let's do it online."
"Christmas could also easily be celebrated online," she added. "Through the digital platform we all can be together, yet we can be safe."
In Britain, government medical adviser Susan Hopkins has said that if people mix during the Christmas break, everyone will need to reduce their contacts again following the holiday.
"Coming into Christmas, we'll need to be very careful about the number of contacts that we have and to reduce transmission before Christmas and get the cases as low as possible," Hopkins said on November 18.
But other experts believe people should not risk gathering for the holidays at all.
"We have not made nine months of sacrifices to throw it all away at Christmas," Gabriel Scally, visiting professor of public health at the University of Bristol, tweeted on November 19.
Epidemiologist Shikta Das agrees with Scally.
"The pandemic is going to stay here. The government is doing its [best] but these decisions won't help. We will go into lockdown after Christmas and the R rate will go up," Das told CNN.
"If you have a very ill person in your family, it's probably better not to meet. Probably not a very good idea," she added.
If Europe does choose to celebrate Christmas with a softening of lockdowns, there may be a price to pay in the new year.
Canada has seen a spike in coronavirus cases in the three weeks since its citizens celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving in October. Its largest city, Toronto, went back into lockdown earlier this week.
Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, said the country was a cautionary tale for the holiday season.
"The question is, have you got the disease under enough control to start with, and can you, in a sense, allow people a little bit more freedom over ... the Christmas period, which generates a sense of confidence and a sense of joy in the community, which people need right now -- without letting the virus let rip again within our communities. And this is a very important tradeoff," Ryan said at a news briefing on Monday.
Oldfield points out that it is natural for people to want to gather together to celebrate.
"Sometimes this saving Christmas [idea] feels bonkers, because you don't want more deaths in return for your pigs-in-blankets," she told CNN. "But at the same time there's a very deep theological [concept] about thriving through human connection. This is really [happening] because we just want to be together."