A downbeat President Donald Trump warned of a wave of litigation as he tore into the “corrupt” US election system just a few hours after former Vice President Joe Biden said he had no doubt that he would win.
In a 20-minute speech from the White House, Mr Trump doubled down on his false claims that mail-in ballots are fraudulent, protesting the ongoing ballot counts in the remaining swing states that will decide the US election. He then exited the room without taking any questions from reporters.
“If you count the legal votes, we easily win,” said Mr Trump. “If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us. If you count the votes that came in late, we’ll look into them very strongly.”
The Trump campaign and his Republican allies have filed various cases in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and Michigan.
“Lots of litigation, even beyond our litigation, there’s tremendous amount of litigation,” said Mr Trump.
A judge in Chatham County, Georgia denied the Trump campaign’s bid to disqualify 50 ballots because the Republican poll watcher making the claim did not offer any evidence that they arrived after the deadline on election day.
And a judge in Michigan denied the campaign’s request to halt vote counting as most of the ballots have already been tabulated and Mr Biden has already secured a victory in the state.
The president went on to lambast mail-in voting, claiming that “it’s really destroyed our system” and that “it’s a corrupt system.”
A record number of voters sent in ballots by mail this year as the COVID-19 pandemic ravages the United States.
Most Democratic voters have opted to vote by mail due to the pandemic, whereas most of Mr Trump’s supporters voted in person after the president railed against mail-in voting for weeks.
Shortly after Mr Trump’s address, Mr Biden tweeted that “No one is going to take our democracy away from us.”
“America has come too far, fought too many battles and endured too much to let that happen.”
Mr Biden gave his own address earlier in the day, stating that “We have no doubt that when the count is finished, we will be declared the winners.”
The dueling speeches came as the vote count entered a third day on Thursday due to the high-volume of mail-in ballots. The Associated Press and major media outlets have called the races in most states, except for Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada. Only the Associated Press and Fox News have called the race in Arizona for Mr Biden, who is closer to securing enough votes to win the electoral college and presidency.
