The president made his unfounded claim even though no news organizations declared a winner between him and Joseph R. Biden Jr., and a number of closely contested states still had millions of mail-in ballots to count.
With no winner declared in the 2020 presidential race, President Trump appeared in the White House just after 2 a.m. on Wednesday to brazenly claim he had already won the election — and to insist that votes stop being counted even though the ballots of millions of Americans had yet to be tallied.
Speaking with a mix of defiance, anger and wonder that the election had not yet been called in his favor, the president recounted his standing in an array of battleground states before falsely declaring: “Frankly, we did win this election.”
No news organizations declared a winner between Mr. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr., and a number of closely contested states still had millions of mail-in ballots to count, in part because state and local Republican officials had insisted that they not be counted until Election Day. Continue reading.