In a shocking statement during is interview with Fox “News” host Chris Wallace, President Trump refused to promise to honor the results of the November elections, reports the New York Times.

“I have to see. Look … I have to see,” Trump told moderator during the interview on ”Fox News Sunday.” “No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t last time either.”

Throughout this campaign and the 2016 election, Trump has persistently questioned the legitimacy of any election he might lose.  He has baselessly claimed that there was widespread voter fraud in 2016 which caused him to lose the popular vote, a claim that was unsubstantiated by a multi-million dollar probe led by his hand-picked investigator, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

In this election season, Trump has claimed that mail-in voting is ripe with fraud, another claim that is in opposition to reality.  Trump himself has voted by mail in the last election, as have many top-level White House staffers, but Trump claims that those votes were legitimate because they were “absentee ballots,” a difference without a distinction.

Many states are encouraging voters to cast ballots via mail due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.  Five states already had vote-by-mail prior to the pandemic; Oregon’s entire election process has been mail-in.  All state provide some type of vote-by-mail for voters unable or unwilling to go to the polls, but 16 states require a “legitimate” reason to do so.

It would be unprecedented for a sitting president to undermine the legitimacy of state-certified election results.  However, he may not have a choice:  according to the Constitution, a president must be sworn in January 20, 2021, at which point, if that president is not Donald Trump, he becomes just another citizens subject to ejection from the White House.