LAS VEGAS — While assessing Donald Trump’s refusal to say he would accept the election results during Wednesday’s presidential debate here, CNN’s Van Jones said there was no way to sugarcoat it.

“This is a very sad night for this country,” Jones, a Democratic strategist, said. “You can’t polish this turd. I’m sorry.”

“Technically, you cannot polish any turd,” CNN host Anderson Cooper dutifully noted.

The panel — including Trump campaign surrogates Kayleigh McEnany and Jeffrey Lord — broke into laughter.





But the discussion got heated from there.

“What you just got now was the nominee of a major party for the first time in our history signaling to the American people that he has so little faith in our institutions,” Jones said of Trump. “He has so little faith in our people, he has so little faith in our courts, he has so little faith in the Republican governors, the Republican secretaries of state, that he will not stand in front of his own country, in front of his own nation and say that he respects the process and the outcome. That is an outrage. That is an appalling lack of patriotism from this man.”

In the spin room, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway walked away during an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash after she was asked if she was disappointed in Trump’s refusal to pledge he would accept the election results.

“Donald Trump will accept the results of the election because he’s going to win the election, so they’ll be easy to,” Conway said. “He won the debate tonight. Amazing performance.”

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When pressed if she would advise Trump to accept the results if he loses, Conway issued a caveat: “Absent of widespread abuse and irregularities, I would say yes, but I think I’ll be saying, ‘Congratulations, Mr. President.’”



