"This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment for our country," said the president. "So we’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court."
It took him a while to get there, but at approximately 2:30 AM ET, President Donald Trump declared a premature victory of the 2020 election before many battleground states had been called and as millions of votes remained uncounted.
Instead, he touted the margins and quoted the numbers by which he was leading in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin with 20 to 30 percent of the votes yet uncounted, suggesting that he was going to go to the Supreme Court to get "all voting to stop."
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View Story"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," he said. "We will not stand for it."
"They knew they couldn’t win so they said, let’s go to court," Trump said in his statements. "All of a sudden everything just stopped. This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment for our country."
"We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election," he continued. "So our goal now is to ensure the integrity, for the good of this nation; this is a very big moment."
"We want the law to be used in the proper manner. So we’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court," the president continued. "We want all voting to stop. We don't want to find any ballots at 4 o'clock in the morning and add them to the list."
The strangeness of his wording was clear, as he appeared to be referring to uncounted votes that had already been submitted. So the voting phase of the democratic process is over, so was he suggesting that he wanted the counting to stop? And as legal experts immediately suggested, there is no legal grounds by which to do that.
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View StoryIt's also worth noting that Trump railed against Fox News for calling Arizona for Joe Biden (which would be a flip) without having counted all the votes in that state. Instead, he seemed to insist that voting continue there, while at the same time suggesting he wants it to stop in states where he's leading.
"To me this is a very sad moment. We will win this," he said, before ultimately putting it out there directly and saying, "As far as I’m concerned, we already have won."
"Frankly, we did win," said Trump.
After he gave his statement, Vice President Mike Pence came forward and directly emphasized the value of respecting the electoral process, including the counting of all the votes.
Trump's comments came about an hour after former Vice President Joe Biden spoke to his own followers, suggesting that he was very confident in the ultimate results of the election. But he also emphasized the importance of allowing all the votes to be counted, and then accepting those results.
Hollywood was outraged by Trump's early declaration of victory, as well as his suggestion that this is "a fraud on the American public," his declaration that he wanted "voting" (counting?) to stop and his threats to take some sort of case to the Supreme Court.
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View Storytrump is basically just skewing logic anyway he can at this point. In regards to close but not called states, if he’s up; he says it counts. if he’s down; he says it doesn’t count. he says people voting for Biden are “disenfranchising” his supporters. now he’s just making noises.
— h (@halsey) November 4, 2020 @halsey
This is beyond dangerous what he’s doing right now. #ElectionNight
— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) November 4, 2020 @pattonoswalt
GOP leaders: Now would be a good time to grow a backbone and denounce Trump’s early claim of victory when there are millions of votes still to be counted in hotly contested states.
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 4, 2020 @GeorgeTakei
Fuck these muthafuckas!! pic.twitter.com/xIOioI4bHq
— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) November 4, 2020 @Lesdoggg
Trump showed the world tonight just how insanely, desperately broke he is.
— Jeffrey Vote Out This Gameshow Clown Wright (@jfreewright) November 4, 2020 @jfreewright
Donald Trump’s premature claims of victory are illegitimate, dangerous, and authoritarian.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 4, 2020 @AOC
Count the votes. Respect the results.
This is unbelievable.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) November 4, 2020 @piersmorgan
Trump has claimed victory, branded the election a ‘major fraud on the American public’ & demanded no more votes be counted.
#CountEveryVote #EveryVoteCounts https://t.co/wEy6MhquNr
— tara strong (@tarastrong) November 4, 2020 @tarastrong
Trump just declared victory, before the votes are counted. We knew it, we called it and bad things will happen because this asshole did this. Be strong people. Be safe. This has never happened. If this was a third world country we’d be laughing at them.
— Titus (@TitusNation) November 4, 2020 @TitusNation
I hate this man so much.
We still have over 1 million mail ballots to count in Pennsylvania.
— Governor Tom Wolf (@GovernorTomWolf) November 4, 2020 @GovernorTomWolf
I promised Pennsylvanians that we would count every vote and that’s what we’re going to do.
👇👇👇👇👇👇 https://t.co/CzwIYK2bFS
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) November 4, 2020 @Alyssa_Milano
What Trump just did is the greatest case Democratic lawyers will have in every court room in America over the next few days. He just announced the election for himself before the votes have been counted. Sometimes the only thing that gives me hope is how bad he is at being bad.
— Josh Gad (@joshgad) November 4, 2020 @joshgad
We have sent troops to other nations to stop dictators from doing what Trump just did. This is NOT how our elections work. We WILL #CountEveryVote https://t.co/EvT2sAg6Rw
— Sophia Bush (@SophiaBush) November 4, 2020 @SophiaBush
Pence cleaning up after him is fucking disgusting
— Ethan Embry (@EmbryEthan) November 4, 2020 @EmbryEthan
a man who hasn't even lost the election, claiming the election was stolen
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) November 4, 2020 @jimmykimmel
How is he both so unpredictable and so completely predictable
— Mara “Get Rid of the Nazis” Wilson (@MaraWilson) November 4, 2020 @MaraWilson
If the Supreme Court is so corrupted as to side with Trump to throw out votes in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, then peace, America, it was a nice run.
— Jeffrey Vote Out This Gameshow Clown Wright (@jfreewright) November 4, 2020 @jfreewright
You don’t come out & say you’ve won states you have not won unless you’re worried about actually winning them. That sad and pathetic and absolutely ludicrous speech, says exactly that. He’s acting the gov’t is trying to take the election from him but HE IS THE GOV’T.
— Kevin McHale (@druidDUDE) November 4, 2020 @druidDUDE
Like everything else he says- it has no value or legal meaning
— Padma "Did You Vote Yet?" Lakshmi (@PadmaLakshmi) November 4, 2020 @PadmaLakshmi
Why is the tanned neighbor from There’s Something About Mary declaring victory?
— Stephen Amell (@StephenAmell) November 4, 2020 @StephenAmell
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