We have, ah, 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.

Eso 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 oclock in the morning and add them to the list way.

Have the president saying he wants Alvaro Ting to stop.

But he appears to be completely appears to be completing two separate things.

The casting of ballots after Election Day on 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 state to continue to count ballots 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, were 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 fax it all on Have a look at the banner that CBS put over the president's address as he was speaking about Pennsylvania.

It's gonna be almost impossible to catch and we're coming into good Pennsylvania areas where they happened to like your president.

Zine 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 one well, as well as the statement from the East Room of the White House.

There was also this from Donald Trump over 90 tweeted.

We are up big, but they're trying to steal the election.

We will never let them do it now.

Twitter flag.

That tweet is containing disputed or misleading information, which is correct.

Since then, Twitter is labeled another two tweets is potentially misleading on hidden them from view.

Facebook added a fact check to an identical posts in the Trump campaign to make it clear that votes were still being counted on.

As counting continues into Wednesday, Donald Trump continued to tweet similar claims.

Here's how Joe Biden responded to all of that, because I've said all along.

It's not my place or Donald Trump's place to declare Who's one of this election?

That's the decision of the American people.

But I'm optimistic about this outcome now.

It's been, well, signal that Donald Trump might make this sort of move if the result was close.

This story for Maxie also over the weekend got a lot of attention.

It reported that Donald Trump had told associates he declared 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 is being marked by many Republicans refusing to condemn the range of inaccurate statements and attacks he's made on a range of people.

On issues reaching this point, some Republicans have spoken out in the last few hours.

Chris Christie, Rick Santorum being too.

Here's a tweet from the conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who has a huge following on YouTube, saying no, Trump has no 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 tripled 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 is 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.

We'll speak to Tammy Patrick, a senior adviser for the election programs, that the Democracy Fund who is with us, Tommy, thank you very much.

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 categorized American democracy in those terms at the moment?

So I think that yes, American democracy, Um, I think maybe, um, the understanding of our democracy by prominent figures.

Not so much.

So I really appreciate your coverage in the last three minutes or a couple of minutes, you've been able to summarize 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 is such a patchwork of laws and policies across about 10,000 different election jurisdictions so that the states that you mentioned Wisconsin and, uh, Michigan and Pennsylvania um, those jurisdictions alone have those states alone have more than 3000 jurisdictions in them.

And so there's such a patchwork of the way in which elections were 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 those you know, they were able to service their voters well and others they were prevented from doing so.

Now, Tommy, 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 a lot of 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 unequivocably eso.

It's important to know that many of these jurisdictions Philadelphia If you wanna watch them count ballots, you could go the Livestream 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're not seeing fraud.

What we're seeing is a narrative that was laid down early this summer to try and undermine our belief and our confidence in our election process.