WASHINGTON (NewsNation Now) — President Donald Trump prematurely claimed victory in several key states, which have not finished counting ballots or been called by The Associated Press, during the early hours of Wednesday.
Trump addressed the media and supporters in the White House’s East Room after 2 a.m. ET. He first applauded those who voted for him, then claimed early victory in states that have yet to be called such as Georgia, North Carolina and others, claiming that “we were winning everything and all of a sudden it was called off.”
Trump could be seen taking a note with prepared remarks out of his pocket before claiming his opponent wants to “go to court” to win the election. The president said with no evidence that the election results were “a fraud on the American public.”
“We want all voting to stop,” Trump said, vowing to go to the Supreme Court. “As far as I’m concerned we have already won.”
Earlier in the evening, Trump tweeted with no evidence to support the claim:
“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Poles (sic) are closed!”
Twitter quickly added a warning to the president’s tweet that read: “Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”
Democrat Joe Biden’s campaign issued a statement on Trump’s remarks early Wednesday.
“The president’s statement tonight about trying to shut down the counting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect,” Biden Campaign Manager Jen O’Malley Dillon stated.
She added that, “If the president makes good on his threat to go to court to try to prevent the proper tabulation of votes, we have legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort.”
Trump won Florida, the nation’s most prized battleground state, as he and Biden on Tuesday battled to the finish of an epic campaign that will shape America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and foundational questions of economic fairness and racial justice.
The two men were locked in tight races across the country, with Trump also claiming the battlegrounds of Ohio and Iowa while Biden won Minnesota and New Hampshire, two modest prizes the president had hoped to take.
Races were too early to call in some of the other fiercely contested and critical states on the map, including North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania. The president, by early Wednesday, had retained many states he won in 2016 and, as long predicted, the race in part seemed to rest on the three northern industrial states where Trump most surprised the Democrats four years ago Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The Associated Press and Nexstar Media Wire contributed to this report.