Hillary Clinton has said the United States needs to 'be ready' for the possibility that Donald Trump will refuse to leave the White House if he loses in November's election.
Speaking to Trevor Noah on Monday night's episode of The Daily Show, Clinton said she could not rule out voter suppression and foreign interference in this year's vote.
Noah asked whether he may attempt, if he loses, to claim that the election was illegitimate and blame mail-in voting.
'Well, I think it is a fair point to raise as to whether or not, if he loses, he's going to go quietly or not,' she said. 'And we have to be ready for that.'
Hillary Clinton on Monday night spoke to Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show
Clinton said that Trump's repeated warnings of mass voting fraud, if mail-in ballots are in widespread use in November, did not stand up to scrutiny.
'There have been so many academic studies and other analyses, which point out that it's just an inaccurate, fraudulent claim,' she said.
'There isn't that problem. All the games that are played ... to try and keep the vote down - that's the real danger to the integrity of our election, that combined with disinformation and misinformation and all the online shenanigans we saw in 2016.'
She continued: 'Republicans have two prongs to their strategy to try to win.
'The first is: try to prevent many people who they think won't vote for them from voting. So, make the lines really long, where young people vote of African Americans vote, or Hispanics vote.
'Try to make vote by mail as difficult as possible, when in fact that is how Donald Trump votes, and everyone who knows vote by mail understands that.'
She said she works with Democracy Docket to support lawsuits 'to make the vote available'.
Clinton said there remained however 'real danger' of an election rigged to lower the turnout, or meddled with from abroad.
'Look, I want a fair election,' she said. 'If people get to vote and they, for whatever reason, vote for Donald Trump, OK, we'll accept it. Not happily.
'But I don't think that's what will happen, because I think the more people who can actually get to the polls, whether by mail or in person, and get their votes counted, then we are going to have the kind of election we should have.
'And then it will be a win both in the popular vote and the Electoral College.'
Clinton was asked about the November election and the possibility of Trump calling fraud. She said it was 'a fair point to raise as to whether or not, if he loses, he's going to go quietly or not'
Donald Trump, pictured on Monday, may not 'go quietly' if he loses in November, she warned
It comes after former President Barack Obama chimed into the debate on mail-in voting Monday, knocking down Trump's claim that it would lead to widespread fraud.
'Voting by mail shouldn't be a partisan issue – especially during a pandemic,' the ex-president wrote.
'Everybody should be able to request an absentee ballot, and make their voice heard in every election.'
Obama then linked to a National Public Radio article that said the possibility for fraud was 'such a miniscule amount it's not statistically meaningful.'
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, so do the calls from Democrats to allow for as much mail-in voting as possible in November to cut down on Americans standing in long lines to vote.
Poll workers tend to be older Americans, who are also at the most risk if they contract the virus.
Clinton challenged Trump for the presidency in 2016, and is pictured at an October debate
Clinton, who remains a divisive figure, is yet to campaign for this year's presumptive Democrat nominee, Joe Biden.
Noah, who returned on Monday from a two week July 4th break, asked Clinton how she had been spending her time during lockdown.
'Because I know if I was in your position, I would spend most of my time tweeting "I told you so" and I would walk around the street just looking at people saying, "It could have been me, it could have been me,"' he said.
'Well, you know, before the lockdown I was doing all of that,' Clinton joked in response.
'I mean there's probably video.'
Trump, pictured on Monday, has frequently expressed concern about mail-in voting
Clinton also attacked Trump for commuting his friend Roger Stone's prison sentence - a decision the White House announced on Friday night.
Noah asked Clinton whether presidents should have the power to commute sentences - particularly when the person in question is related to them in a case - and what precedent Trump could be setting to America by pardoning anybody who protects a president by 'not snitching'.
In response, Clinton said 'I think you just summed up why Roger Stone was pardoned.
'He basically threatened Trump. He basically said "I sure don't want to go to jail, I sure have a lot more to say, and boy I just wish there'd be somebody who could stop me from having to go to jail" and guess what, Trump intervened,' she said.
Pictured: Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser of U.S. President Donald Trump, reacts after Trump commuted his federal prison sentence, seen outside his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on July 10, 2020 wearing a 'Free Roger Stone' face mask
'This is an extension to the total disregard for the rule of law. The pardon power is supposed to be used for compassionate purposes. To try to right wrongs, to try to make sure people are not being punished or unfairly, or have been punished enough.
'In this case, it's a continuation of the cover-up,' she said. 'Because the one thing that Trump is fearful of, when it comes to his being president, is that finally we will see how illegitimate his victory actually was.
'And how he was involved in the seeking of foreign help and the utilization of it, and how Roger Stone was critical to that.
She said that Stone's commutation was yet one more reason to vote Trump out of office in November, so the full scale of his behavior could be brought to light with a new president in power.
'But, you know, unless Trump is defeated at the polls in November, we will never really know everything there is to know about this really deep, ongoing dismantling of institutions and undermining the rule of law and the original sin of the way that he actually won the election,' she said.
'So Roger Stone was in the middle of it all. And that's why Trump had to cover it up.'
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