Trump campaign fundraising email doubles down on his claim that Democrats plan to STEAL the election and asks donors to contribute one last time to ‘defend your president’
- Fundraising email sent out early Wednesday repeated Trump’s claim
- Asked donors to contribute ‘one last time to defend your president’
- Trump’s claim of election theft was immediately flagged by Twitter
- As of early Wednesday, no winner had been declared in the presidential race
- Trump effectively declared victory in a public statement at 2.30am
- Vowed to go to the Supreme Court to stop all vote counting immediately
President Donald Trump‘s campaign has repeated his explosive claim that Democrats are attempting to ‘steal’ the presidential election, sending a fundraising email urging supporters to donate ‘one last time to defend your president.’
Trump made similar claims in a tweet that was flagged as ‘disputed’ and ‘misleading’ by Twitter, and in an explosive press conference claimed the election was a ‘fraud on the American people’.
As yet, no winner has been clearly projected in the election, and the key states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin are still tallying votes.
‘It’s no secret the Democrats will try to STEAL this election,’ reads the Trump campaign email sent early on Wednesday, according to a copy shared by Fox News producer Pat Ward. ‘We’re emailing you now to ask you to step up ONE LAST TIME and DEFEND YOUR PRESIDENT.’
A Trump campaign email sent early on Wednesday claimed Democrats will ‘steal’ the election
President Donald Trump’s campaign has repeated his explosive claim that Democrats are attempting to ‘steal’ the presidential election
‘They can’t stand the thought of America REJECTING their candidate, so they’ll do whatever it takes to manipulate the results,’ the message continues.
The official campaign email signaled that the Trump team is uniting behind his strategy of preemptively challenging results in state races that have yet to finalize their tally.
At a 2.30am press conference, Trump claimed the election was a ‘fraud on the American people’ and that he was going to the Supreme Court to stop all vote counting immediately.
He effectively declared victory, saying: ‘Frankly we did win this election.’
He set the stage for a titanic struggle with Democrat Joe Biden over the millions of ballots which are still to be counted and which might not be fully counted until as late as Friday.
Biden had been first to speak, just after midnight, saying ‘it ain’t over till every vote is counted,’ in an address from Wilmington, Delaware.
Trump tweeted immediately to accuse Biden of fraud and say he would make his own statement.
‘We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!’ Trump wrote in a tweet, which was immediately flagged by Facebook and Twitter.
Twitter hid a Trump’s tweet behind a label that said it was potentially misleading and restricted users’ ability to share the post.
Facebook also added a label to the same post that said ‘final results may be different from initial vote counts as ballot counting will continue for days or weeks.’
Twitter wasted no time flagging Trump’s tweet as potentially misleading
Facebook posted a warning on one of Trump’s posts with the same message
Facebook affixed a notice to the post that said ‘votes are still being counted. The winner of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election has not been projected.’
A Facebook spokesman said that following this post, it was running top-of-feed notifications on Facebook and Instagram to say votes are still being counted and a winner has not been projected.
He also said Facebook had started applying automatic labels to both candidates’ posts with this information.