President Donald Trump addressed a crowd of supporters at the White House on Tuesday night amid uncertain election results, pushing his narrative that the Democrats are trying to steal the election while votes were still being counted and threatening to go to the Supreme Court to declare him the winner.
“I want to thank the American people for their tremendous support,” Trump said in the East Room of the White House. “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.”
A slate of battleground states, namely Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, were still counting a mountain of mail-in ballots deep into Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, with election officials saying it could be days before a winner is declared.
Trump effectively declared himself the winner in those states, saying anything otherwise would amount to a “fraud on the American public.”
“This is an embarrassment to our country,” the president said. “We were getting ready to win this election, frankly we did win this election.”
He continued: “We want all voting to stop, we don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list. It’s a very sad moment. We will win this, and as far as I’m concerned we already have won.”
Trump’s remarks followed a series of tweets he sent mentioning a “big WIN!” and accusing Democrats of violating election rules, even though millions of legitimate votes were still being counted or were still to be delivered.
“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election,” he said of Democrats, laying the groundwork to fight results that might not be in his favor. “We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Poles are closed!”
Twitter censored the tweet with a misinformation warning.
Trump announced he was speaking shortly after his opponent, Democratic nominee Joe Biden, addressed a crowd in Wilmington, Delaware, urging patience and optimism as results trickled in.
“We knew this was going to go long, but who knew we were going to go into tomorrow morning, maybe even longer?” Biden said. “We feel good about where we are. We really do. I’m here to tell you tonight, we believe we’re on track to win this election.”