President Donald Trump addressed the nation from the White House at 2.30 a.m. on Wednesday following the presidential election.
In his address, Trump declared victory in the deadlocked election, calling Tuesday's Election a "fraud" and saying he was going to the Supreme Court to stop the counting of votes immediately.
'We Did Win This Election'
Trump went on to claim that he had already won a number of states, where all the votes, including mail-in votes and absentee ballots, have not yet been counted to call the results – a process that could take a couple of days.
"This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country," Trump said in the White House's East Room. "We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election."
With Trump winning in Florida, Texas and Ohio, the election effectively comes down to Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where the president is currently leading but millions of votes have not yet been counted. Vote-counting was also underway in Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina as he spoke.
Trump alleged that a "very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise" his voters. "They can't catch us," he said repeatedly as he went on about the current vote tallies. The president then complained about "somebody" (Fox News) calling Arizona for Biden. Shortly after the press conference, the same call was made by the Associated Press.
'We're Going to the Supreme Court'
The president then demanded that the counting of votes be stopped immediately and said he was willing to go to the Supreme Court to "stop the counting."
"So our goal now is to ensure the integrity, for the good of this nation," he said. "This is a major fraud on our nation. 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 4 o'clock in the morning and add them to the list."
"As far as I'm concerned, we already have won it," he added.
Votes from major cities that are likely to vote for Biden, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Detroit and Atlanta - are still being counted, with updates not expected for several hours. The deadline in Pennsylvania for late-arriving ballots is Friday.
According to a report published by Axios on Sunday, the president had plans to declare a premature victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he is "ahead." Sources claimed that Trump would celebrate the win even if there are still uncounted votes in key states that could alter the outcome of the Electoral College in subsequent hours or days.
Although Trump later denied the report, he did lambast the Supreme Court ruling that allow absentee ballots that arrive after Election Day to be counted in key states like Pennsylvania as "terrible," before adding that his campaign intends to fight it legally if things don't go his way.
Read more
