Donald Trump erupts as Joe Biden closes in on US presidency

President Donald Trump launched a tirade of unsubstantiated claims that he had been cheated out of successful the US election, as vote counting throughout battleground states early Friday confirmed Democrat Joe Biden closing in on victory.

Biden’s momentum in direction of the White House constructed additional with main media retailers reporting he had overtaken Trump by a razor-thin margin within the essential battleground state of Georgia.

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“They are trying to steal the election,” an more and more remoted Trump stated in a unprecedented look on the White House on Thursday, two days after polls closed.

Providing no proof and taking no questions from reporters, Trump spent practically 17 minutes making the type of incendiary statements concerning the nation’s democratic course of which have by no means been heard earlier than from a US president.

According to Trump, Democrats have been utilizing “illegal votes” to “steal the election from us.”

“If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” he claimed. “They’re trying to rig an election. And we can’t let that happen.”

Trump repeated these claims in a tweet early on Friday.

His rhetoric got here as his marketing campaign aggressively challenged the integrity of the large variety of ballots mailed in fairly than solid in particular person on Election Day.

The large shift to postal ballots this 12 months mirrored the need of voters to keep away from risking publicity to Covid-19 in crowded polling stations throughout a pandemic that has already killed 235,000 Americans.

Mail-in ballots have tilted closely to Democrats. In the essential state of Pennsylvania, the Trump marketing campaign moved to cease the counting of votes, which authorities have been forbidden from processing earlier than Election Day.

Mixed assist for Trump

Several main US tv networks reduce away from stay protection of Trump’s occasion over issues of disinformation and there have been indicators of cracks in assist inside his Republican Party.

Representative Will Hurd known as Trump’s name to cease vote-counting “dangerous and wrong,” whereas Rupert Murdoch’s lengthy supportive New York Post known as Trump’s allegations “baseless.”

But outstanding Republicans rallied behind Trump and signalled that they may problem the legitimacy of outcomes if the president loses.

“I think everything should be on the table,” Senator Lindsey Graham stated when requested by Fox News host and Trump loyalist Sean Hannity if Pennsylvania’s Republican-led legislature ought to refuse to certify outcomes.

Biden, 77, was only one or, at most, two battleground states away from securing the electoral school votes to take the White House.

Trump, 74, wants an more and more unlikely mixture of wins in a number of states to remain in energy.

Biden, who has promised to heal a rustic bruised by Trump’s terribly polarizing 4 years in energy, appealed for “people to stay calm.”

“We have no doubt that when the count is finished, Senator (Kamala) Harris and I will be declared the winners,” he stated in feedback to reporters in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

“The process is working,” he stated. “The count is being completed. And we will know soon.”

Biden closes in

In Georgia, a typically Republican state, Biden pulled forward with a lead of 917 votes, CNN, Fox News and the New York Times reported.

Also Read | Biden takes lead from Trump in Georgia, a primary for Democratic candidate since 1992

If Trump loses Georgia, he can’t win a majority of electoral school seats.

In Arizona and Nevada, Biden was holding on to slim leads.

If Biden wins two of these three states he would win the presidency.

The largest piece of the puzzle is Pennsylvania, the place Trump’s early lead continued to steadily draining away.

The Democratic hopeful at present is projected to have 253 of the 538 electoral school votes divvied up between the nation’s 50 states.

He has 264 with the inclusion of Arizona, which Fox News and the Associated Press have known as in his favor however different main organizations haven’t.

If Biden took Pennsylvania, he would seize 20 extra electoral school votes, thereby immediately topping the required 270 for general victory.

The newest outcomes confirmed Trump’s lead within the state had shrunk to round 18,000 votes, with most ballots but to be counted coming from Democratic stronghold Philadelphia.

Protests throughout nation

Trump’s marketing campaign insisted that the president has a solution to win, citing pockets of Republican assist but to be counted and likewise alleging mass fraud with out offering proof.

Trump’s crew fanned out throughout the battleground states difficult the ends in court docket and his supporters converged exterior election workplaces in a number of cities.

Outside an election workplace in Arizona’s capital Phoenix, far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones roused a closely armed crowd, shouting on a megaphone about Trump’s supposed enemies, “They will be destroyed because America is rising.”

In Las Vegas, Trump backers carrying crimson “Make America Great Again” hats demanded to see ballots being processed.

Brando Madrigal stated he wished to confirm that the votes are “not coming from the people who died with Covid, people who are out of state, people who don’t have the ability to vote because they don’t have the papers.”

But whereas Trump was demanding that counting be halted in Georgia and Pennsylvania — the place his lead is narrowing — his supporters and marketing campaign insisted that it proceed in Arizona and Nevada, the place he’s trailing.

Bob Bauer, a lawyer for the Biden marketing campaign, dismissed the slew of lawsuits as “meritless.”

“All of this is intended to create a large cloud,” Bauer stated. “But it’s not a very thick cloud. We see through it. So do the courts and so do election officials.”