Wade writes: "The president addressed a mostly maskless crowd in the White House early Wednesday morning where he spewed lies and disinformation about the results of the presidential election and announced his intent to invalidate millions of legally-cast votes."
People against President Donald Trump watch a video at Black Lives Matter Plaza, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, in Washington. (photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
04 November 20
“We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop,” the president threatened
he president addressed a mostly maskless crowd in the White House early Wednesday morning where he spewed lies and disinformation about the results of the presidential election and announced his intent to invalidate millions of legally-cast votes.
Trump falsely claimed that the Democrats and media were conspiring to defraud the American public, saying that initial election results were showing him “winning everything” and then “all of a sudden it was just called off.” That is, of course, not the case. Election results are still coming in and will likely continue to trickle in as the week goes on.
“All of a sudden everything just stopped,” Trump said. “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. So the goal now is to ensure the integrity [of the election] for this nation.”
President Trump: "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. Our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this nation." #ElectionNight pic.twitter.com/oSKoPlSaIc
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 4, 2020
Because of the pandemic, this election has higher numbers of absentee and mail-in ballots than ever before, and in some key swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, officials were not allowed to count those votes until election day. So for those states, we may not know the final results until later this week. But the president said that counting those legitimate votes amounts to fraud and announced his intent to bring this to the Supreme Court, although he gave no details about how that would happen.
“This is a very big moment. This is a major fraud on our nation,” he said. “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.”
The president has been previewing this strategy in recent weeks, claiming ballots counted after election day are somehow illegitimate. Don’t fall for it. He is trying to undermine our democracy. This election is far from over.
Democratic candidate Joe Biden took a much more measured approach in his election night communications compared to the president. “We knew this was going to go long,” he told voters in a speech. “We feel good about where we are. We really do.”
Later, he tweeted, “It’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare the winner of this election. It’s the voters’ place.”
It's not my place or Donald Trump's place to declare the winner of this election. It's the voters' place.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 4, 2020
Biden’s campaign manager released a statement blasting Trump’s :naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens”:
Biden campaign manager @jomalleydillon statement on Trump remarks:
— Tim Dickinson (@7im) November 4, 2020
"outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect.. a naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens." pic.twitter.com/OvSA5jUVjP
