Trump rails against Clinton for joining election recount

President-elect Donald Trump is railing against ex-rival Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign for joining in a recount of the votes cast in Wisconsin. The effort, which he already called “a scam,” was launched by Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

“Hillary Clinton conceded the election when she called me just prior to the victory speech and after the results were in,” Trump wrote in the first of a series of tweets he posted early Sunday morning. “Nothing will change.”

On Saturday, Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias said that while his team “had not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology,” they would participate in the Stein-led recount in Wisconsin as well as recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan if Stein is successful in initiating them.

Trump pointed to the criticism he received from Clinton and other Democrats when he refused to say he would accept the results of the election when asked during the third presidential debate.

“That is horrifying,” Clinton responded after Trump’s refusal. “That is not the way our democracy works. We’ve been around for 240 years. We’ve had free and fair elections. We’ve accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them. And that is what must be expected of anyone standing on a debate stage during a general election. I, for one, am appalled that somebody that is the nominee of one of our two major parties would take that kind of position.”

Clinton later blasted Trump’s refusal to say that he would respect the election results as “a direct threat to our democracy.”

And during her concession speech a day after the election, Clinton urged her supporters to “accept the results and look to the future.”

“Donald Trump is going to be our president,” she said. “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.”

Stein has raised more than $5 million to pay for the recounts in the three battleground states. In Michigan, Trump leads Clinton by 10,704 votes, according to the state’s yet-to-be-certified count. In Wisconsin, Trump defeated Clinton by 22,525 votes. In Pennsylvania, he beat her by about 68,000 votes. Clinton would have to win recounts in all three states to overturn the outcome of the Electoral College, but experts say there is virtually no chance of Stein’s campaign overturning even one.

Related: ‘This is a scam’: Donald Trump blasts Jill Stein’s recount effort

“The Green Party scam to fill up their coffers by asking for impossible recounts is now being joined by the badly defeated & demoralized Dems,” Trump tweeted. “So much time and money will be spent — same result! Sad.”

Stein, for her part, questioned the Clinton campaign’s support for the recount too.

Nonetheless, the recount effort has amplified tensions that were already high because of Clinton’s overall victory in the popular vote, which Clinton is on track to win by around 2.5 million.

“No, nothing will change,” The Nation’s Joan Walsh replied to one of Trump’s tweets. “You lost the popular vote by 2.5 million. you’ll have to live with that.”