Despite Donald Trump emerging triumph in the presidential election, White House Press Secretary John Earnest has said that his Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote underscores her ability to built support for a national campaign.
Responding to a poser as to whether the poll have rejected not only Clinton but also incumbent Barack Obama by casting their votes in Trump's favour, Earnest wondered whether anybody has direct answer to the same.
Earnest drew the attention of the media towards some relevant facts to put forth his stand.
"The first is that Secretary Clinton won the popular vote. Now winning the popular vote is not what gets you the keys to the oval office, for that you got to win the electoral vote. But it does underscore the depth of support and enthusiasm for her message and for her campaign and that is a testament to her leadership and her ability to built support for a national campaign," said Earnest.
"The other thing that happens to be true is that a lot of people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, who voted for his re-election in 2012, voted for Donald Trump in 2016. And I don't have an explanation for that to put it bluntly," he added.
The Press Secretary further opined that President-elect Trump would have several challenges in particular with regard to the country's economy when he takes over the White House.
"There are some things that we knew to be true before the results started being tallied. And one of those things was that the next President, whether it was Secretary Clinton or Mr. Trump, would have got to have some difficult challenges and difficult questions to answer with regard to a range of policies. We know that our economy is facing some intense headwinds from overseas. What's the kind of approach that the next President would take to ensure that our economy can strengthen, navigate those headwinds in a way that benefits the American middle class and not only those who sit at the top," said Earnest.
"That's the difficult challenge that any President will have to face and certainly President-elect Trump would have to determine the best path for confronting that," he added.
Trump won the US presidential election yesterday in a stunning victory as he took the key swing states of Florida, North Carolina and Ohio.
Clinton conceded her defeat after Trump ended long election by grabbing 276 electoral votes from 27 states, six more than the 270 needed to win the Presidency.
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