Trump refuses to take questions after falsely claiming he won election in first media appearance in weeks

No sitting US president has falsely claimed an election victory from the Brady Briefing Room. Until Friday

Donald Trump, making his first public remarks in weeks, declined to take reporters’ questions after falsely claiming from the White House briefing room “I won” the general election.

“Big pharma ran millions of dollars of negative advertisements against me during the campaign, which I won, by the way, but you know, we’ll find that out. Almost 74 million votes,” he said during a briefing mostly about new regulations he says will lower prescription drug prices. He is ignoring the fact President-elect Joe Biden received 79.6 million votes, according to the Associated Press.

He also accused Pfizer and Moderna of withholding word of their coronavirus vaccine successes until after Election Day, saying “maybe it would have made a difference.” But then a melancholy president said maybe it would not have helped him win. 

Either way, he claimed, “[Democrats] would have found the ballots somewhere.” That comment echoed his lead personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who claimed on Thursday that the Democratic Party had carried out a planned conspiracy to drop potentially illegal ballots late in initial counts in key swing states to steal the election from his client.

Mr Trump has previously called the race “rigged” against him, even as Republican state officials stand by their counts in states Mr Biden won.

Despite making those unprecedented comments from behind the White House lectern on the perhaps the world’s most famous podium, Mr Trump left the James Brady Briefing Room without taking reporters’ questions about the election. As they shouted their inquiries, Mr Trump walked slowly through a blue sliding double door and back towards the West Wing.

Mr Trump has been one of the most press-accessible chiefs executive in American history, often taking questions in the Oval Office, during so-called “Chopper Talk” sessions on the South Lawn, under the wing of Air Force One, and during other official events at the White House and on the road.

But with the presidency slipping away – Mr Biden is on pace to be sworn in on 20 January – the once-talkative 45th president has not taken a reporter’s question in 17 days. The last instance came on 3 November, the morning of Election Day. 

Instead, Mr Trump has taken to Twitter to air his many grievances and claim over and over that he won the election and that Democrats in a handful of states he lost took unproven actions to help Mr Biden.

Federal judges in each of those states have tossed his campaign’s lawsuits, saying they have not proven their charges and have presented little evidence.

Those campaign lawyers have time and again, as has Mr Trump, said they “soon” will present clear and overwhelming evidence of widespread voter fraud – but they have yet to do so.

The irony is Mr Trump and his team are alleging Democrats committed voter fraud while trying to carry out their own version of just that, one high-powered Washington lawyer said.