courtesy ht nov 7

Trump not yet done, repeats ‘fraud’ claims
Washington : President Donald Trump erupted in a tirade of unsubstantiated claims that he has been cheated out of winning the US election as vote counting across battleground states early Friday showed Democrat Joe Biden steadily closing in on victory.

“They are trying to steal the election,” an increasingly isolated Trump said in an extraordinary appearance at the White House on Thursday.

Providing no evidence and taking no questions afterwards from reporters, Trump spent nearly 17 minutes making the kind of incendiary statements about the country’s democratic process that have never been heard before from a US president. “If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” he claimed. “They’re trying to rig an election. And we can’t let that happen,” he added.

Several TV networks cut away during his remarks, with anchors saying they needed to correct his statements.

The President’s team also fanned out across states challenging the results in court and his supporters converged outside election offices in several cities.

His aides filed a flurry of complaints over vote monitoring in Pennsylvania and ineligible voting in Nevada. A case in Georgia related to 53 ballots was tossed out.

Outside an election office in Arizona’s capital Phoenix, far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones roused a heavily armed crowd, shouting about Trump’s supposed enemies, “They will be destroyed because America is rising.” In Las Vegas, Trump backers wearing “Make America Great Again” hats demanded to see ballots being processed. P8