the united states of course is now in an
unprecedented situation we have
a presidential candidate in donald trump
the president himself claiming
without evidence that widespread fraud
is occurring
and demanding that the counting of
legitimate votes stop
extraordinary situation and it was a
situation that became clear
when donald trump spoke around two
o'clock on tuesday night
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
[Applause]
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 u.s 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
okay so we have the president saying he
wants all voting to stop but he appears
to be in confl
appears to be conflating two separate
things the casting of ballots after
election day
and the counting of ballots after
election day to be clear
voting has closed what mr trump is
saying is that states don't count
millions of ballots that were already
legitimately cast
by the end of voting on tuesday his
argument is that election day is over
but this election is not
a day it's a perfectly normal state of
affairs
for states to continue to count balance
for several days
even weeks after election day and it
bears repeating there is absolutely no
evidence
of widespread fraud not this time not in
previous american elections
either everything is normal about the
process as it's currently playing out
of course an american president
attacking american democracy
isn't normal well every major network
carried donald trump's remarks live
but nbc and msnbc cut away from his
speech
before he was finished brian williams
said on msnbc
we are reluctant to step in but duty
bound to point out that when he says we
did win this election we've already won
that is not based in the facts at all
and have a look at the banner
that cbs put over the president's
address as he was speaking about
pennsylvania
it's going to be almost impossible to
catch and we're coming into
good pennsylvania areas where they
happen to like your president
cbs making it clear this election did
not have a winner yet nor does it now
and here's chris wallace on fox news
responding to what the president said uh
this is an extremely flammable situation
and the president just
threw a match into it uh he he hasn't
won these states
nobody is saying he's won the states the
states haven't said that he's won
well as well as the statement from the
east room of the white house there was
also this
from donald trump overnight he tweeted
we are up big but they are trying to
steal the election we will never let
them do it now twitter flagged that
tweet as containing
disputed or misleading information which
is correct
since then twitter has labelled another
two tweets as potentially misleading
and hidden them from vue facebook added
a fact check to an identical post on the
trump campaign
to make it clear that votes were still
being counted and
as counting continues into wednesday
donald trump continued to tweet
similar claims here's how joe biden
responded to all of that
as i've said all along it's not my place
or donald trump's place to declare
who's won this election that's the
decision of the american people but i'm
optimistic about this outcome
now it's been well signaled that donald
trump might make this sort of move
if the result was close this story from
axios over the weekend got a lot of
attention
it reported that donald trump had told
associates he'd declare victory
if he looked like he was ahead he
declined to deny that story when asked
about it and we've seen what's come to
pass and
now we have the trump presidency which
has been marked by many republicans
refusing to condemn the range of
inaccurate statements and attacks he's
made
on a range of people and issues reaching
this point
some republicans have spoken out in the
last few hours chris christie
uh rick santorum being two here's a
tweet from the conservative commentator
ben shapiro who has a huge following on
youtube saying no trump has not already
won the election
and it is deeply irresponsible for him
to say that he has
now some states have gone out of their
way to reassure voters that this count
will be legitimate here's a statement
from an election official in the
important battleground state of
wisconsin which we've been talking about
wisconsin's counting we're told and
reporting of unofficial results have
gone according to law
our municipal and county clerks have
worked tirelessly throughout the night
to make sure every valid ballot is
counted and reported accurately
it also says the results will be triple
checked including randomly selected
audits
that's wisconsin we're focused on three
midwestern states wisconsin michigan and
pennsylvania
in pennsylvania ballots are still being
counted we expect that to go on for
several days
here's what the governor there has said
and i will do everything within my power
to ensure that the results are fair and
that every vote is counted
pennsylvania will have a fair election
and that election will be free of
outside influences
i will vigorously and we all will
vigorously defend
against any attempt to attack that vote
in pennsylvania
i want to speak to tammy patrick a
senior adviser for the election programs
at the democracy fund who's
who's with us tammy thank you very much
you know i'm following this story and
thinking about ronald reagan's words of
america being a shining city on the hill
a beacon of light around the world but
would you really categorize american
democracy in those terms at the moment
so i think that yes american democracy
um
i think maybe the understanding of our
democracy
by prominent figures not so much
so um i really appreciate your coverage
in the last three minutes or a couple of
minutes
you've been able to summarize um what i
think unfortunately many people in this
country don't understand
about the way in which our elections
work why do you think americans don't
have that understanding
well i think it's important for your
viewers and audience to understand that
in the united states there's such a
patchwork
of laws and policies across about 10
000 different election jurisdictions so
the the states that you mentioned
wisconsin
and uh uh uh michigan and pennsylvania
um those jurisdictions alone have those
states alone have more than three
thousand jurisdictions
in them and so there's such a patchwork
of the way in which
elections are conducted that it can be
confusing for people
particularly in this moment here we are
in a global pandemic and across the
united states in the last
year we saw more than 300 pieces of
litigation
challenging the ways in which election
officials at the state and local level
were able to service their voters in
this moment and it's really been
unfortunate that in some states
both you know they were able to service
their voters well and in others they
were prevented from doing so
now tammy we're hearing from the trump
campaign i interviewed a supporter of
donald trump just a few minutes ago
saying they believe there is evidence
that this election is not being handled
properly from your position speaking to
all the people you know
do you have any concerns that there is
electoral fraud playing out
not in any way shape or form and i say
that unequivocally
um so it's important to know that many
of these jurisdictions philadelphia if
you want to watch them count ballots you
can go the live stream right now
and watch them 24 hours a day in the
processing of the ballots
in detroit you can also do that arizona
so
it's a very transparent process and we
are not seeing fraud
what we are seeing is a narrative that
was laid down early this summer
to try and undermine our belief and our
confidence in our election process