As more and more returns from the 2020 presidential election began to roll in, the picture of who would be president of the United States for the next four years started to become a bit more clearer. But when much of America went to bed early Wednesday morning, the nation still didn’t have a definitive winner.
That didn’t stop President Donald Trump and Democrat nominee Joe Biden from addressing the nation and supporters. Biden urged Americans to remain calm and have patience as many key battleground states paused vote counting in the early hours of Wednesday morning, while President Trump used the platform to declare victory prematurely.
Races in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada had yet to be called for either candidate. President Trump was hanging on to leads in many of those states, and the president saw those leads as a sign he was going to pick up the necessary 270 electoral college votes to win re-election.
As the president spoke from The White House, NBC News cut in to Mr. Trump’s remarks to clarify what he was saying.
“We’ve got to dip in here because there have been several statements that are frankly just not true,” said Savannah Guthrie over the president speaking. “The president going through some of the states stating that he had prevailed in those states.”
“The fact of the matter is those states have not come close to counting all of their votes,” she added. “There are still outstanding votes.”
Multiple news outlets and networks had already made plans in case the president claimed victory before results could be certified, and MSNBC had even gone as far to say they wouldn’t air the president’s remarks if he was going to declare himself the winner prematurely.
