WASHINGTON — President Obama ridiculed Donald J. Trump on Tuesday for saying that the presidential election was rigged against him, telling Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee, to “stop whining and go try to make his case” to win more votes than Hillary Clinton.
At a news conference in the White House Rose Garden, Mr. Obama said, “I have never seen in my lifetime, or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place.”
By turns mocking and grave, Mr. Obama said the claims demonstrated that Mr. Trump lacked the leadership or toughness to be president. But he warned that the charges, which Mr. Trump repeated to cheers at a rally in Colorado later in the day, would undermine the nation’s purest expression of democracy, a popular vote respected by the vanquished as well as the victors.
His sharp words reflected rising concerns among Democratic and Republican leaders that Mr. Trump’s drumbeat of accusations was resonating with his supporters. Many worry that if Mrs. Clinton wins and Mr. Trump refuses to accept the result, his stand will undermine her authority going into office and sow doubts about the legitimacy of the process.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump did not heed Mr. Obama’s warning. While he did not address the president directly, he repeated his claims of an election stolen through voter fraud — singling out, with no evidence, African-American communities as the likely culprits of the fraud.
“Voter fraud is all too common, and then they criticize us for saying that,” he said in Colorado Springs. “But take a look at Philadelphia, what’s been going on, take a look at Chicago, take a look at St. Louis. Take a look at some of these cities, where you see things happening that are horrendous.”
“And if you talk about it, they say bad things about you, they call you a racist,” Mr. Trump added.
Mrs. Clinton was off the campaign trail on Tuesday, preparing for her final debate with Mr. Trump on Wednesday, so it fell to Mr. Obama to rebut Mr. Trump’s assertions. The president did so with obvious relish.
There is no evidence, he said, that a presidential election has ever been rigged. He said there was little indication that it could be, given that elections are run by state and local authorities, with people from both parties supervising polling sites and ballot counting.
“The notion that somehow if Mr. Trump loses Florida, it is because of those people that you have to watch out for,” he said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “That is both irresponsible and, by the way, doesn’t really show the kind of leadership and toughness that you want out of a president.”
“If you start whining before the game’s even over,” Mr. Obama continued, “if whenever things are going badly for you and you lose, you start blaming somebody else, then you don’t have what it takes to be in this job, because there are times when things don’t go our way — or my way.”
Mr. Obama has been a happy warrior for Mrs. Clinton on the stump, not hesitating to tar Mr. Trump for his judgment, veracity and fitness for office. At first, though, he said he was reluctant to use the setting of the Rose Garden — where he stood next to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy — to deliver another broadside against Mr. Trump.
Asked about Mr. Trump’s statement that, if elected, he would meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia before taking office, Mr. Obama replied, “I’m going to be a little more subdued in my discussions of the Republican nominee in this context than I might be on the campaign trail.”
“Mr. Trump rarely surprises me anymore,” the president said in a measured tone. He said he was more surprised that other Republican leaders, who had stridently opposed his efforts to reach out to Russia early in his presidency, would now endorse a candidate who he said was unprecedented in his “flattery of Mr. Putin.”
But when the subject returned to the Republican nominee — and the issue of voter fraud — Mr. Obama cast off his restraint.
“I’d invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes,” he said. If Mr. Trump won, the president added, Mrs. Clinton would deliver a concession speech and he would escort Mr. Trump to the Capitol for the time-honored ritual of a peaceful transfer of power.
“That’s what Americans do,” he said. “That’s why America is already great. One way of weakening America, making it less great, is if you start betraying those basic American traditions that have been bipartisan, and have helped hold together this democracy now for well over two centuries.”
Many Republicans have responded with a chorus of criticism, including the House speaker, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the titular head of the party. On Monday night, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a primary challenger of Mr. Trump’s, joined in during a debate in Orlando with his Democratic senatorial challenger, Representative Patrick Murphy.
“This election is not being rigged,” Mr. Rubio said, adding that Mr. Trump “should stop saying that.”
“We have 67 counties in this state, each of which conduct their own elections,” Mr. Rubio said. “I promise you there is not a 67-county conspiracy to rig this election.”
The latest tempest overshadowed Mr. Obama’s meeting with Mr. Renzi, a charismatic young Italian leader whom the president welcomed with a flourish. On Tuesday night, he and Mrs. Obama were to honor Mr. Renzi and his wife, Agnese Landini, at the final state dinner of the Obama administration, with a menu by the celebrity chef Mario Batali and entertainment by the pop star Gwen Stefani.
Mr. Renzi was good-natured about the distractions of his host and the press corps. When an Italian journalist asked him about a coming referendum at home, he replied: “I have a feeling, and I think rightly so, our American friends are a little bit more interested in Nov. 8 than in the Italian vote on constitutional reform. And so are we, might I add.”
Mr. Obama touched on another political issue — this one with implications for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. He denied reports that the State Department and the F.B.I. had discussed a quid pro quo to settle a dispute over how one of Mrs. Clinton’s emails should be classified. The exchange between the F.B.I. official and a senior State Department official, Patrick F. Kennedy, was part of a routine give-and-take between agencies, he said.
“Based on what we have seen, heard, learned,” Mr. Obama said, “some of the more sensational implications or appearances, as you stated them, aren’t based on actual events and based on what actually happened.”
NY Times
