Editor’s note: After I drafted this, Donald Trump delivered remarks more vile and pathetic than any parody I could ever muster. But I’m posting this anyway for absolutely no reason. Maybe just catharsis, to be rid of this guy. The Washington Post has since reported, “Trump is unlikely to ever concede in the traditional sense, allies said — giving the sort of gracious, magnanimous speech the nation has come to expect at the end of even the most hard-fought presidential contests. If he loses, these people added, they expect Trump to continue to baselessly claim, as he has done for several days now, that the election was stolen.”

Version 1 (as written):

Final 11-17-20 3:54 pm (MS)

Remarks by the President on the Election

The White House

Good afternoon.  A few minutes ago I spoke with Vice President Biden. It was a very close election, and we saw problems with voting and many things that were very unfair. Despite that, more people voted for me than any incumbent president in American history. 

I congratulate our great Republican candidates who won big victories all across our country, with our help. 

I also am grateful to my family, our great First Lady, to the members of my administration, our great Vice President Mike Pence, and to the women and men who worked so hard on our campaign. I am especially grateful to my tens of millions of supporters across America who turned out at our rallies and supported me.

We said we would Make America Great Again, and we’ve accomplished more than any administration in history — cutting taxes and regulation, replacing bad trade deals with great deals that help the American people, protecting our borders with the Wall, rebuilding our military, honoring our veterans, creating the greatest economy in the history of the world.

If not for the China virus, which no one could have seen coming, and no one could have done a better job defeating, and also for actions by the Democrats that made the election very unfair, I would have won easily. I will work every day to fight this deadly disease and protect the American people, while moving to re-open our economy. And we will work with the Biden team, if that becomes necessary, as we have always done in our great democracy. 

Thank you. 

Version 2 (transcript):

Remarks by President Trump On The Election

The White House

Washington DC 

November 17, 2020

9:42 pm

Good afternoon.  Good evening.  A few minutes ago, or hours ago, I talked to Vice President Biden. I — he seems to think he is winning, I don’t know, the crooked, illegal media is saying that, although there are lot of Trump ballots out there to be counted, maybe millions of them, that haven’t been counted, OK? And millions of Democrat ballots that are obviously totally fraudulent, and it’s a disgrace, really.

And we’ve had incredible rallies with incredible crowds, the biggest numbers you’ve ever seen. Incredible people. And nobody went to see Sleepy Joe. They stand in little circles, like twelve people. Or to see President Obama. Or Mike Pence for that matter. Or anybody frankly, with the possible exception of the late, great Elton John. 

The election was obviously rigged, and all of you know it. We won big, like you’ve never seen before — in Florida and Ohio and Texas and a lot of places that the fake news said we would lose. Bad things happened in Philadelphia, and Michigan and Wisconsin and Arizona and Atlanta and other places. Nevada. Like we’ve never seen before. And we’re looking at it very strongly.

But I talked to him, and we’ll what happens.

I think, frankly, I have been treated very unfairly regarding the China virus, which I stopped with the travel ban, which Sleepy Joe was against and Fauci was against, and he was also against masks, which, frankly, might work sometimes but other times might not. So we’ve done an incredible job. Scott, do you want to come up and say something about that? Where’s Scott?

OK. 

I think it would be tough, frankly, for Sleepy Joe, who is mostly gone, to do this job, which requires a tremendous amount of stamina. He’ll end up being dominated, probably, by Kamala Harris, AOC, Crazy Bernie, Pocahontas, as I call her, and the rest of the radical socialist left. Omar, there’s another beauty. But that’s OK. 

Really, this couldn’t have happened without massive fraud by the Democrats. Because we’ve done an incredible job. We’ve accomplished more, maybe, than any administration in history — cutting taxes and reservations, replacing brad trade deals with great deals that help the American people, protecting our borders with the Wall, rebranding our military, honoring our great veterans, creating the greatest ecronomy in the history of the world. The history of the world. 

So we’ll see what happens. Thank you very much.