President Donald Trump, who hadn’t spoken publicly since an address early Wednesday, delivered remarks Thursday evening about the state of the undecided presidential election that were largely false.
Here’s what Trump said from the White House, and the facts.
‘If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.’
This is entirely false. There’s no evidence that any fraudulent ballots have been counted, no winner has been called in the race, and what’s happening right now in the battleground states isn’t the counting of “illegal ballots.”
In Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina — all states that are too close to call — the regular counting and reporting of valid ballots are ongoing.
Behind the president’s claims is the fact that officials in those states weren’t permitted to begin processing mail ballots until Election Day. Democrats were more likely to vote by mail. The in-person vote Tuesday favored Trump, but as larger metro counties continue to count and report the millions of stored-up early ballots, Joe Biden has cut into Trump’s early leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia. (Trump, meanwhile, has chipped away at Biden’s lead in Arizona as more votes are tallied.)
