President Trump broke cover on Saturday morning to play golf after firing off a barrage of angry tweets as Joe Biden edged closer to White House victory, making a series of unfounded claims including that tens of thousands of mail-in votes had been ‘illegally’ cast because they arrived after 8pm on election day, hundreds of thousands more should not be considered because they were not observed being counted and that he had won ‘by a lot’.
Biden is now on the brink of victory with leads in all four of the key swing states still in play. The country and the world are waiting for results from Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia to determine who will be the next president.
The states continue to count the last of their mail-in votes and what are known as segregated votes which are ballots that need a closer look because of flaws like incorrect dates or mismatched signatures. If Biden wins Pennsylvania today – where an update is expected imminently - he would have enough electoral college votes to win without any of the other states. Equally, if he wins Arizona and Nevada together, he would cinch victory.
News networks – which ordinarily call elections within 24 hours of polls closing – are resisting because the race is so tight and so much of it is being contested.
Trump, refusing to accept that the results so far have been legitimate, has vowed to contest them.
On Saturday morning he tweeted that his supporters have been banned from observing vote counting in some of the key swing states despite shouting ‘stop the count!’ and that officials had been ‘covering windows’ to block their views and forbidding them from overseeing the process.
He also promised a ‘big’ press conference in Philadelphia, where vote counting continues, where he said his lawyers would be present, then was seen leaving the White House in casual dress.
While in the car, he tweeted a link to a Breitbart story about a ‘glitch’ in vote counting software, then said: ‘I WON THIS ELECTION BY A LOT!’. He was seen arriving at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, shortly afterwards.
Trump has not yet offered any proof of his claims. His campaign has vowed to file lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada to argue that the results cannot be trusted, and he is demanding a recount in Wisconsin.
President Trump was seen leaving the White House on Saturday morning after firing off a barrage of tweets claiming the election results were fraudulent. It’s unclear where he is going
The President was dressed casually with a white MAGA hat and sweater. He was not seen in person yesterday
Overnight, faith among Trump’s allies seemed to dwindle and calls for him to concede the race mounted.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham prepared viewers for the likelihood that he had lost.
She said: ‘For now, it’s time to take our gains, learned from our defeats, and confidently expand one of the greatest political movements for the past 100 years,’ she said.
She said a Trump defeat did not mean that the ‘America First movement’ was over, but that ‘President Trump’s legacy will only become more significant if he focuses on moving the country forward’.
Trump tweeted again on Saturday morning claiming the election had been fraudulent and that he’d won ‘by a lot’
Donald Trump Jr., who earlier in the week told his father to ‘fight until the death’ and urged their fans not to give up at a rally, posted a photograph of the pair on Instagram in the Oval Office, which he captioned: ‘Thanks for always fighting so hard for America dad, it’s an honor to be in that fight with you.’
It was a softened tone from the angry rally where he said America had turned into a ‘banana republic’ that had to be reclaimed.
The Wall Street Journal – which, like Fox, is owned by Rupert Murdoch – published an op-ed from its editorial board urging Trump to concede.
‘If Mr. Biden has 270 Electoral College votes at the end of the counting and litigation, President Trump will have a decision to make.
‘We hope in that event he would concede gracefully,’ they said.
As it stands:
- Biden is just 17 electoral votes shy of winning the presidency, meaning he could be declared winner in one of two ways.
- If he wins Pennsylvania, he gains 20 votes and no longer needs either Arizona or Nevada. But if he wins Arizona – which has 11 electoral college votes – and Nevada – which has 6 – he no longer needs Pennsylvania.
- It is likely Biden could win as soon as Pennsylvania is called, where he currently leads Trump by more than 28,000 votes.
- He has a 0.4% lead with 49.6% of the state’s total vote, compared to Trump’s 49.2%. The Associated Press waits for a candidate to have a 0.5% lead to call a race. Anything below that difference would require a recount, as per state law.
Biden gave a speech on Friday night in his home state of Delaware. He never mentioned Trump directly but he presented a drastic change of tone, saying that the ‘purpose of our politics isn’t total, unrelenting warfare.’
In its editorial board piece on Friday night, the Wall Street Journal said Trump had ‘accomplished a great deal’ since 2015.
‘He has accomplished a great deal since descending on that Trump Tower escalator in 2015, including his historic first victory and a strong re-election performance when he was supposed to lose in a rout. We’d hate to see that legacy ruined by a refusal to accept the normal transfer of power.
‘But if defeat comes, he will serve himself and his country best by honoring America’s democratic traditions and leaving office with dignity.’
Trump has offered no indication that he plans to concede. He spent Friday evening tweeting furiously to air a series of fraud conspiracies, and before Biden began his address had tweeted: ‘Joe Biden should not wrongfully claim the office of the President. I could make that claim also. Legal proceedings are just now beginning!’
Through the evening he shared attacks on Fox News calling Arizona early in the race, claims that mail-in ballots postmarked after election day were counted and suggestions that poll watchers were barred from watching counts.
In his Friday night speech, Biden urged patience but said he was confident he would win.
Earlier, his campaign trolled President Trump as it became increasingly clear that the Democratic nominee would be the next president of the United States.
‘As we said on July 19th, the American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfect capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House,’ Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said Friday.
In his address, Biden added: ‘No, the purpose of our politics, the work of our nation, isn’t to fan the flames of conflict, but to solve problems, to guarantee justice, to give everybody a fair shot and to improve the lives of our people.’
‘We may be opponents – but we are not enemies. We are Americans,’ he continued. That didn’t stop him from boasting about wins, however.
‘One of the things I’m especially proud of is how well we’ve done all across America,’ he told a crowd of socially distanced reporters and staff. ‘We are going to be the first Democrat to win Arizona in 24 years. We are going to be the first Democrat to win Georgia in 28 years.’
‘And we re-built the Blue Wall in the middle of the country that crumbled just four years ago: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin.’
Biden did not answer questions on whether Trump, who said his opponent could not ‘wrongfully claim the office of the president’, should concede.
However, a spokesman for his campaign said: ’The United States Government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.’
Biden did indicate he expects a result in the presidential contest on Saturday.
‘I hope to be talking to you tomorrow,’ he said.
He counselled patience as the vote tally continues and anxious Americans wait to learn who will be their next president.
‘I know watching these vote tallies on TV moves very slow and does as low it goes, it can be numbing. Never forget, the tallies aren’t just numbers, they were represent votes and voters. They exercised this fundamental right to have their voice heard.
‘What’s becoming clearer each hour, is that record number of Americans of all races, faiths, religions, chose change over more of the same. It given us a mandate for action on COVID, the economy, climate change, systemic racism. They made it clear, they want the country to come together, not continue to pull apart. The people spoke,’ he said.
Ironically, minutes after he finished speaking, it was revealed that the White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has become the latest person there to test positive for COVID-19.
Joe Biden addressed the nation late Friday night as his leads expanded in Pennsylvania and Nevada putting him on the cusp of winning the presidency
Speaking alongside his running mate Kamala Harris, Biden said he is on his way to a ‘clear win’, predicting more than 300 electoral votes in his favor
A United States Marine stands guard in front of the west wing at the White House, signalling that President Trump has entered
Meadows, 61, was last in the White House on Thursday, CNN reported.
He would in theory be critical to a handover of power, but Biden indicated that he and Harris have started the transition process without saying whether they had received help from the Trump administration.
‘We are not waiting to get the work done. We are starting the process,’ he said.
And he vowed to bring the country together.
Biden said he believed people were sick of politics being so nasty.
‘No matter who you voted for, I am certain of one thing: the vast majority of those 150 million Americans who voted, they want to get the vitriol out of our politics. We are not going to agree on a lot of issues, but at least we can agree to be civil with one another. We have to put the anger and the demonization behind us it’s time for us to come together as a nation to heal. It’s not going to be easy, but we have to try.
‘My responsibility as president will be to represent the whole nation and I want you to know that I will work as hard for those who voted against me as those who voted for me. That is the job. That is the job. It’s called the duty of care for all Americans,’ he said.
Trump is yet to react to Biden’s remarks, however he did fire off a series of retweets on Twitter supporting his claims of voter fraud and cheating as his opponent spoke.
Minutes after Biden finished speaking, it was revealed that the White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has become the latest person there to test positive for COVID-19
Among the tweets was one by co-founder of Real Clear Politics Tom Bevan who criticized Fox News’s early call in Arizona, where Biden currently leads by a slim margin.
Bevan called the move ‘totally unnecessary’ while pointing to how they waited hours to make a call in Florida when Trump was up by three points.
Trump also retweeted a clip of Jim Jordan, the Ohio congressman who was re-elected on Tuesday, who told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the situation was ‘worse than we thought’.
Jordan said people in Pennsylvania were ‘allowing votes to come in after the day’ – something which the courts ruled could happen, provided the ballots were postmarked by election day.
He also railed at ‘the transparency issue’, claiming – without evidence – that election monitors like Dave Bossie were being asked to leave.
‘This is the first time in history that you have a party systematically set out to win the election after the election, and it has to be stopped.’
Trump tweeted: ‘Incredibly stated Jim!’
Earlier he also tweeted: ‘I had such a big lead in all of these states late into election night, only to see the leads miraculously disappear as the days went by. Perhaps these leads will return as our legal proceedings move forward!’
Demonstrators celebrate and dance at the “Donald Trump is Over” party in Washington Square Park in New York City
Donald Trump spent Friday evening tweeting furiously to air a series of fraud conspiracies
People listen to Biden’s speech from Delaware through speakers outside the White House, as votes continue to be counted four days after Election Day
People gather during a demonstration held by supporters of democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden at Washington Square Park in New York
Trump is yet to react to Biden’s remarks, however on Twitter he retweeted a series of posts supporting his claims of voter fraud and cheating as he spoke
Earlier on Friday the Supreme Court ordered all late mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania to be counted separately, as Joe Biden continued to pick up steam.
All Pennsylvania counties must temporarily segregate ballots that arrived after 8pm on Election Day under an order issued by Justice Samuel Alito Friday night following an appeal lodged by Republicans earlier to exclude those votes from the total count.
Trump’s campaign had filed a motion to block a decision by the state’s highest court that allowed election officials to count mail-in ballots postmarked by Tuesday’s Election Day that are delivered through Friday.
Alito on Friday agreed to set those votes apart however, it came after Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar had already instructed county boards to separate them – limiting Trump’s ability to claim the court order as a victory.
Most of the votes are believed to favor Biden, and Republicans say they should be disqualified under Pennsylvania state law. The concern is that if they are mixed with other ballots, it would render any attempt to disqualify them impossible.
But whether or not those ballots are ultimately counted seems unlikely to affect who gets the state’s 20 electoral votes now that Biden is leading by a 28,877-vote margin, as of midnight.
As of late Friday, there were approximately 89,000 mail ballots still to be counted in Pennsylvania, with the majority in Allegheny County, the second largest county in the state.
Additionally, there are potentially tens of thousands of provisional ballots that remain to be tabulated, though an exact number remained unclear. Those ballots will be counted after officials verify their eligibility to be included.
Allegheny could be what brings Biden to 270 electoral votes. The county includes Democratic strongholds of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, where he holds 80.78% of the vote.
Biden’s plans to address the nation had prompted an angry tweet from Donald Trump sent from the White House where he had spent the day reportedly fuming as he watched television and spoke to confidantes.
His legal path to challenging the election unclear and his mathematical path to retaining power apparently almost closed, Trump railed: ‘Joe Biden should not wrongfully claim the office of the President. I could make that claim also. Legal proceedings are just now beginning!’
Then he tweeted – apparently somewhat plaintively – that his initial ‘big leads’ had vanished, something which election watchers had predicted for weeks before the election.
‘I had such a big lead in all of these states late into election night, only to see the leads miraculously disappear as the days went by. Perhaps these leads will return as our legal proceedings move forward!’ he tweeted.
But vote tallies in Pennsylvania and Nevada showed Biden’s lead – not Trump’s increasing.
In the White House, Trump’s inner circle were scrambling to work out how to tell him he had lost, while he vowed defiantly to pursue legal challenges to the count in a series of states, claiming he was fighting for ‘election integrity,’ the day after an extraordinary 17-minute tirade claiming he was the victim of a ‘conspiracy’ and that counting the votes was part of the ‘fraud.’
Biden’s campaign has kept ready an outdoor stage at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware for a primetime address and warned TV networks to be prepared for a speech.
Close supporters of the VP were tipped off Friday to head to the Chase Center in their vehicles. The Democrats have been holding major events drive-in movie theater style in order to ensure proper social distancing of their crowds. The Chase Center parking lot is where his campaign staged fireworks after he accepted the Democratic nomination during the Democratic National Convention, where the major speeches were moved to Wilmington due to the coronavirus pandemic. If the race is called for the former vice president, the event is expected to look the same.
The country and the world are waiting for election results from three states; Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona.
One reason for the tightening race is that under Pennsylvania law, elections officials are not allowed to process mail-in ballots until Election Day.
It’s a form of voting that has skewed heavily in Biden’s favor after Trump spent months claiming — without proof — that voting by mail would lead to widespread voter fraud.
There’s a possibility the race won’t be decided for days and according to CNN, there are about 102,000 ballots left to count. If there is less than a half percentage point difference between Biden and Trump’s vote total, state law dictates that a recount must be held.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney earlier on Friday said it was time for Trump to ‘put his big boy pants on’ and concede.
The scene in front of the White House early on day three after election day for the 2020 Presidential election
Democrats had long considered Pennsylvania a part of their ‘blue wall’ — a trifecta that also includes Wisconsin and Michigan — that for years had served as a bulwark in presidential elections. In 2016, Trump won each by less than a percentage point.
Biden, who was born in Scranton, claims favorite-son status in the state and has long played up the idea that he was Pennsylvania’s ‘third senator’ during his decades representing neighboring Delaware. He’s also campaigned extensively in the state from his home in Delaware.
Trump cannot win on Pennsylvania alone; with 214 electoral college votes, he’d still need to pick up either Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona or Nevada – the four other states where a result is yet to be officially confirmed.
Earlier on Thursday, Kathy Boockvar told CNN’s Jake Tapper: ‘I think there’s about 550,000 some odd — you know, plus or minus — ballots that are still in the process of being counted today.
‘Some of those may have already been counted but are not yet uploaded. But yeah, they’re coming in. We’re getting 10,000 here, 20,000 here, counties are furiously at work.
Pennsylvania said it would continue counting mail-in ballots until Friday so long as they were post-marked from November 3.
Meanwhile, Trump had sued Pennsylvania to undermine whatever election result is returned.
Voting was temporarily halted in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh on Thursday as a result of the legal row.
A judge intervened and dismissed the federal motion.
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks to the media about a court order giving Trump’s campaign access to observe vote counting operations on Thursday in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Trump supporters protest in front of the Pennsylvania Commonwealth capitol building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Thursday
The Trump campaign had a brief legal victory in Pennsylvania on Thursday when a judge ruled ballot observers can watch officials count ballots within six feet.
Representatives of both campaigns were in the room to watch the counts but at a further distance because of the coronavirus. A county judge agreed with the Trump campaign, but the state Supreme Court rejected it.
The situation in Pittsburgh had been complicated by about 30,000 outstanding ballots, where a vendor sent the wrong ballots to voters and had to reissue new ballots with the correct races.
Poll workers had to examine these ballots to make sure that people don’t vote twice, or, if they sent in the wrong ballot, they didn’t vote in races they aren’t eligible for.
They were not legally allowed to be counted until Friday when Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh sits, swears in a special board to examine these ballots, as required by law.
Trump’s team of lawyers have filed lawsuits on multiple fronts – to try to stem the flow of presumably pro-Biden mail ballots into the system, and to try to force greater access for observers so they presumably can challenge more individual ballots.
They scored an initial win Thursday morning, which former Florida Secretary of State Pam Bondi, a Trump backer, brandished at a press conference.
The ruling, by the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, reverses a decision by the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia. It lets Trumps observers ‘be permitted to observe all aspects of the canvassing process, within 6 feet, while adhering to all COVID-19 protocols, including wearing masks and maintaining social distancing’.
On Twitter, Trump touted it as a: ‘Big legal win in Pennsylvania!’
But then the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania almost instantly struck it down when Democrats appealed.
The reason of the appeal was not concern over the watching itself, experts said, but because Democrats say Republicans accepted the rules on watching before they went into effect.
Conceding that the rules could be changed after they had been agreed would open the way to more rules being changed, they argue.
That is not the end of the road for the Trump campaign. The big battle, with a greater potential to affect the count, could come in an effort to challenge an earlier Supreme Court decision allowing the state to count mail-in ballots that come in three days after Election Day.
Conservative justices had indicated that it could get another hearing should these ballots that get counted later prove decisive.
But a decisive win by Biden with votes that came in before Election Day would undercut the need for the suit – and Biden was chipping away at Trump’s lead with hundreds of thousands of ballots outstanding.
Pennsylvania Democrats, mindful of potential challenges and alarmed by reports the Republican-controlled legislature might seek to intervene, have been segregating mail-ballots that come in later to prevent the state’s entire result from being thrown out.
Pennsylvania’s Attorney General blasted the move on Thursday.
‘That question is a question of state law,’ he said, noting it was decided by the state supreme court. ‘It was decided that those ballots and they will be counted,’ he told CNN.
‘We’re following the law here in Pennsylvania here. We’re counting these legal votes,’ he said.