President Trump self-declared himself the likely winner in multiple races that are too early to call earlier Wednesday morning, vowing to take the 2020 presidential election results to the Supreme Court to stop a “very sad group of people” who are “trying to disenfranchise” voters and the election by committing massive act of fraud.
“I want to thank the American people for their tremendous support, millions and millions of people voted for us tonight. And a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it. We will not stand for it,” Trump said in a brief remark that occurred at 2:21 am ET from the White House East Room alongside First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Second Lady Karen Pence. “We were winning everything and all of a sudden it was just called off. The results tonight have been phenomenal and we are getting ready. This is a record. There’s never been anything like it to support our incredible movement.”
“This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election,” Trump added. “So our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this nation. This is a very big moment. This is a major fraud in our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we’ll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at four o’clock in the morning and add them to the list.”
Trump began touting states of Florida, Ohio, and Texas that gave him significant electoral win, while prematurely declaring victories in key battleground states of Georgia and North Carolina where he currently is in the lead but is still too close to call as of early Wednesday.
“We won states that we weren’t expected to win. Florida, we didn’t win it. We won it by a lot,” Trump said. “We won the great State of Ohio. We won Texas by 700,000 and they don’t even include it in the tabulations.”
“It’s also clear that we have won Georgia. We’re up by 2.5% or 117,000 votes with only 7% left. They’re never going to catch us. They can’t catch us. Likewise, we’ve clearly won North Carolina. Where we’re up 1.4%. We’re 77,000 votes with only approximately 5% left. They can’t catch us,” Trump continued.
Three key battleground states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin hang in the balance as votes are currently being counting due to the historically high volume of early and mail ballots that were driven by the results of the coronavirus pandemic. In Pennsylvania, election officials have coming out to say they currently are unable to count all the ballots election night, while seven counties plan to begin the counting until the day after Election Day.
On the Arizona race, the results were looking dim for Trump as Fox News was the only major news outlet to call the race for Biden. At the time he gave remarks, the president was down by 8.7% or 208,795 votes with 75% reported. The Trump campaign disputed Fox News projected call and called on the network to rescind until the outstanding ballots were counted.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey in a tweet argued the call was made “far too early.”
“Election Day votes are not fully reported, and we haven’t even started to count early ballots dropped off at the polls,” Ducey tweeted. “In AZ, we protected Election day. Let’s count the votes — all the votes — before making declarations.”
Trump, without mentioning Fox News touched on the Arizona race that declared Biden the winner, saying there are more votes that are starting to come from areas considered Trump territory that now makes the state still in play.
Biden gave brief remarks shortly after midnight saying his campaign feels good about his chances and is “on track” to win the election. Shortly after, Trump took to Twitter, claiming his Democratic rival was attempting to try to “steal” the election.
“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!” Trump wrote.
Twitter quickly took action against the tweet, flagging a warning “misinformation” label stating the message from the president contains content that is “disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.” The tweet is also being restricted from being shared or retweeted by other users.
We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020
The Biden campaign released a statement on Trump’s remarks, calling it “outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect,” and that neither the president nor Biden will “decide the outcome of this election.”
“The president’s statement tonight about trying to shut down the counting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect. It was outrageous because it is a naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens,” Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in the statement.
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