President Donald Trump sounded like he was panicking on Wednesday morning and afternoon. As the hours after Election Day dragged on, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden pulled into the lead in critical states around the country, including Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan, all of which could help put him over the top and hand the Democrats control of the White House. Trump resorted to outrageous conspiracy theories in the face of his potentially impending loss. On Twitter, he ranted that authorities “are finding Biden votes all over the place — in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan,” which he called “So bad for our Country!” He also claimed that authorities “are working hard to make up 500,000 vote advantage in Pennsylvania disappear — ASAP,” which is a total lie.
Twitter flagged the tweet in which Trump claimed that local election authorities are “working hard” to make Trump’s initial advantage in Pennsylvania disappear. The platform placed a notice alongside Trump’s original message, saying that “[some] or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.” Saying it “might” be misleading seems like a bit of an understatement — Trump’s allegation that authorities are working to deliberately swing the election from Trump to Biden is total conspiratorial make-believe. There is no validity to the president’s claim whatsoever.
Counting valid votes is not a conspiracy against the president! It’s long been clear that the president’s own supporters heavily favor in-person voting on Election Day. These in-person votes are what Pennsylvania reported first — as mail-in ballot results come in, the state was set to shift towards Biden at a potentially sharp rate due to Democratic reliance on mail-in/ absentee voting. This concept isn’t complicated — but the president has decided to cast doubt on the integrity of the process anyway. He has threatened to take his complaints about the ballot-counting process to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it’s not immediately clear how he could actually get there, since there must be a pre-existing case for the court — which has three of his appointees on it — to take up an issue.
At this point, the president seems to be peddling maliciously willful ignorance about election-related issues. At this point, with circumstances as-is, it seems difficult to imagine him willfully conceding the race to Biden. On Twitter this Wednesday, Trump eventually kept up his conspiratorial rambling — he proclaimed that it “looks like Michigan has now found the ballots necessary to keep” Republican candidate John James from winning the U.S. Senate, which Trump called a “terrible thing.” This “thing” he’s referring to, which he also complained about in Pennsylvania, is counting valid votes!
Wow! It looks like Michigan has now found the ballots necessary to keep a wonderful young man, John James, out of the U.S. Senate. What a terrible thing is happening!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020
We are winning Pennsylvania big, but the PA Secretary of State just announced that there are “Millions of ballots left to be counted.”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020
Check out Twitter’s response to Trump below:
