Donald Trump claims election triumph is being 'stolen' by 'illegal votes'

5 November 2020, 23:57 | Updated: 6 November 2020, 01:24

Donald Trump: "If you count the legal votes I easily won"

By EJ Ward

@EJWardNews

Donald Trump has said that there has been "historic election interference by big media, big money and big tech" in the 2020 election.

Addressing the White House press corps as counting is still underway in several states the sitting President claimed he would "easily win" if "you count the legal votes."

Two days after election day, neither candidate has amassed the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.

Mr Trump went on to claim he was looking very strongly at votes which came in late, and if the illegal votes were counted "they can easily steal the election from me."

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The President claimed he has "already decisively won many critical states."

"I have already decisively won many critical states including massive victories in Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, to name just a few," the Republican candidate claimed.

He added: "We won these and many other victories despite historic election interference from big media, big money and big tech."

Hitting out at pollsters Mr Trump said they had got it "knowingly wrong," suggested they failed to predict a "big red wave."

His Democratic rival Joe Biden reacted to Trump's statement by saying "no one" would take their democracy away.

He tweeted: "No one is going to take our democracy away from us. Not now, not ever.

"America has come too far, fought too many battles, and endured too much to let that happen.

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Mr Trump's comments come as some high-profile Republicans have distanced themselves from the President's attempts to falsely declare victory in the election and halt vote counting in Pennsylvania and other states.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Trump ally who won re-election on Tuesday in Kentucky, told reporters that "claiming you've won the election is different from finishing the counting".

The Republican Governor of Maryland also said there is "no defense for the President’s comments tonight" 

Larry Hogan tweeted: "There is no defense for the President’s comments tonight undermining our Democratic process. America is counting the votes, and we must respect the results as we always have before. No election or person is more important than our Democracy."

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Mr Trump went on to say that 2020 had been "the year of the republican woman", saying that more female members of the party had been elected to the US Congress than "ever before".

He added he had won the largest share of non-white voters in 60 years including "historic" numbers of Latino-American, African-American, Asian-American and native Americans.

"We grew our party by four million voters, the greatest turnout in Republican party history", he said.

"Republicans have become the party of the American worker and that's what's happened, and we're also the party of inclusion."

Mr Trump alleged that media polling was "election interference in the truest sense of that word".

"These really phoney polls, I have to call them phoney polls, fake polls, were designed to keep voters at home and create the illusion of momentum for Mr Biden."

Mr Trump said his party thought they would win the election "very easily" but that there would be "a lot of litigation" involved.

"We have so much evidence, so much proof and it's going to end up, perhaps, at the highest court in the land", he said.

"We think there will be a lot of litigation because we can't have an election stolen like this."

The president reminded reporters in the White House press briefing room that he had been saying "for months" that mail-in ballots would be a "disaster".