Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence said his ticket will “absolutely” accept the results of the election, saying any sense of a “rigged” election stems from an avalanche of negative media coverage about his running mate, Donald Trump.
Mr. Trump has urged his supporters to watch out for funny business at the polls this November, though Mr. Pence, the governor of Indiana, said the peaceful transfer of power is one of America’s great traditions.
“We will absolutely accept the result of the election. Look, the American people will speak in an election that will culminate on November the Eighth,” Mr. Pence told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “But the American people are tired of the obvious bias in the national media. That’s where the sense of a rigged election goes here.”
In a round of Sunday interviews, Mr. Pence was visibly frustrated with the amount of attention being paid to the tally of women — nine so far — who have accused Mr. Trump of groping them or making unwanted sexual advances in past years.
He pointed to a series of leaked emails from WikiLeaks that outlined serious problems with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
“I have to tell you it really is astonishing to most Americans that as these unsubstantiated allegations [about Mr. Trump] are treated with an enormous amount of coverage on this network and other networks that revelations coming out of Secretary of State Clinton’s years in the state department and the Clinton Foundation are virtually ignored by the national media,” he said.
Mr. Pence cited a New York Times story that says Qatari representatives wanted to get “five minutes” with former President Bill Clinton in 2012 so they could give him a $1 million check for his foundation as a birthday gift.
The newspaper cited it as an example of the “thorny” ethical issues that confront the intersection of the foundation with Mrs. Clinton’s interaction with foreign actors during her time at the State Department.
It’s unclear if the meeting actually happened, and NBC host Chuck Todd suggested the report undercut Mr. Pence’s thesis about the media.
“You just cited The New York Times, obviously not a small news organization,” Mr. Todd said.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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