Chris Wallace says Trump 'threw a match' into flammable situation with election night speech
Following President Trump’s address at the White House in early hours of Wednesday, Fox News host Chris Wallace took issue with some of what the president had to say. In his brief remarks, Trump claimed victory in multiple states that were still tabulating votes, and claimed, without specifically naming the news outlet, that Fox News was wrong in calling a victory for Joe Biden in Arizona. As speculated days earlier, Trump prematurely claimed victory, saying, “Frankly, we have won this election.”
Wallace said, “This is an extremely flammable situation and the president just threw a match into it. He hasn’t won these states. Nobody is saying he’s won the states. The states haven’t said that he’s won.”
Trump also repeatedly made it clear before the election that he would take the results to the Supreme Court if he saw fit, and he doubled down on that threat Tuesday night, saying, “We want the law to be used in a proper manner, so we’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop.”
In response, Wallace said, “Voting to stop, yes, but vote counting? You know, these states, by state law, all have the opportunity, and states routinely are unable to count votes by election night or early into the morning of the day after the election, and it goes on for days.”
And Wallace doesn’t believe Trump’s efforts in the courts to invalidate votes will work.
“I don’t know if he literally meant that he’s gonna try to stop the counting of the vote,” Wallace said, “but I would think that would be extremely inflammatory, and frankly, I don’t think it’s something the courts will allow.”
Despite being reported that Trump had planned to prematurely claim victory on election night, and for weeks he was open about his desire for the courts to get involved leading up to the election, hearing Trump actually say it from the White House earned him a strong reaction on CNN, where a panel took Wallace’s criticism even further.
“It’s not a surprise, but still, years into this presidency, I find it shockingly disappointing that he still would continue to erode faith that the American people have in institutions,” Jake Tapper said, after refuting Trump’s claims that the election is fraudulent.
“To say what he said from the White House is just not something that I think any of us really expected to see and hear in our lifetime,” Dana Bash added, “That is not what democratically elected presidents, or candidates for the presidency say. That’s what authoritarians say.”
And, from in front of the White House, Jim Acosta joined in the repudiation of Trump’s claims, saying, “I think our Founding Fathers are probably rolling in their graves right now. They did not envision a president of the United States delegitimizing an American election, and that is what the president just did a few moments ago. It’s historic, and it’s historically awful.”
For more on the election check out Yahoo News.
Watch Stephen Colbert explain why ‘it’s actually a good thing we don’t know who won yet’:
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
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