President Donald Trump suddenly announced he would make public remarks this week in his first appearance in the briefing room since he lost the election to President-elect Joe Biden.
After reporters hurried to the briefing room, the president appeared with Vice President Mike Pence at his side and began, “I just want to congratulate everybody, the stock market Dow Jones industrial average just hit 30,000, which is the highest in history. We’ve never broken 30,000 and that’s despite everything that’s taken place with the pandemic.”
He continued, “I’m very thrilled with what’s happened on the vaccine front. That’s been absolutely incredible. Nothing like that has ever happened, medically. And I think people are acknowledging that and it’s having a big effect. But the stock market’s just broken 30,000 — never been broken, that number. That’s a sacred number, 30,000. Nobody thought they’d ever see it.”
Moments later, the president closed by saying, “I just want to congratulate all the people within the administration that worked so hard. And most importantly, I want to congratulate the people of our country because there are no people like you.”
The entire press conference lasted roughly a minute and reporters shouted questions about whether he will concede his election defeat as the president and vice-president left the Brady Briefing Room.
Watch the video below:
President Trump: "I just want to congratulate everybody. The stock market Dow Jones Industrial Average just hit 30,000 which is the highest in history. We've never broken 30,000 and that's just despite everything that's taken place with the pandemic." pic.twitter.com/aKsXFqucfu
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 24, 2020
The president has continued to refuse to concede the election to Joe Biden. The avenues that he had hoped to use to overturn the election were recently closed when Georgia and Michigan certified Biden as the winner of the election in those states.
The stock market surged over 30,000 after a number of coronavirus vaccines have been announced in recent days.
The president does seem to be inching closer to accepting the results of the election. On Monday night, he recommended that the Government Services Administration allow the Biden transition team access to the funds allocated to incoming administrations — though he later said in a tweet, “We are moving full speed ahead. Will never concede to fake ballots [and] ‘Dominion’.”
