Newsrooms across the aisle rebuke Trump for ‘victory’ call

In a stunning scene in the middle of the night, news organisations rebuked President Trump after he falsely said on live television that he had won re-election even as votes were still being counted. With reporters and supporters gathered at the White House at 2.20 EST (1250 IST) on Wednesday, Trump said it was “a major fraud on our nation” that he hadn’t been declared the winner. “As far as I’m concerned, we already have won this,” he said.


The words were barely out of his mouth before TV anchors rushed to refute him. CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell said Trump was “castrating the facts” by “falsely claiming that he has won the election and disenfranchising voters whose ballots have not been counted”.

NBC News

’ Savannah Guthrie interrupted Trump’s speech to say, “The fact of the matter is we don’t know who won the election.”

The president’s address received criticism in what are normally friendlier outlets. “This is an extremely flammable situation and the president just threw a match into it,” said

Fox News

Channel’s

Chris Wallace

. His Fox colleague Dana Perino said “he (Trump) went a step too far”. Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro tweeted that it was “deeply irresponsible” for Trump to claim victory.