BIDEN WINS 11 PAGES OF THE FINEST ANALYSIS
But Trump tweets: I won ...bad things happened
JOE BIDEN was finally declared America’s next President yesterday – and immediately vowed to ‘unite and heal’ his bitterly divided country.
However, a defiant Donald Trump, who learned of his defeat while playing golf at his course in Virginia, refused to accept the result and instead accused his rival of ‘falsely posing’ as the winner.
Mr Biden, who turns 78 on November 20, will become the oldest ever President and only the second Catholic in the Oval Office when he is sworn in on January 20.
Major TV networks called victory for Mr Biden – Barack Obama’s former Vice President – at 4.25pm UK time, after declaring he had won the swing state of Pennsylvania.
Mr Biden was told the news by his grandchildren. He then hugged them all with his son Hunter – the touching moment was captured by Hunter’s daughter Naomi and posted on Twitter.
Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris was out jogging when the declaration was made. She was filmed embracing her husband before taking a call from Mr Biden and telling him: ‘We did it, Joe!’
She will become the first woman to hold America’s second-highest office.
The 20 electoral college votes Mr Biden won in Pennsylvania took him to 273, three more than the 270 needed to win. He later took Nevada, too, putting him at 279.
Mr Biden was scheduled to make his victory speech early this morning, and in a tweet last night he said he was ‘honoured and humbled’ by the trust the American people had placed in him.
Seeking to bridge the political and social rifts that have been exposed during a bitter election, he added: ‘With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation. It’s time for America to unite and to heal.
‘We are the United States of America. And there’s nothing we can’t do, if we do it together.’
However, Mr Trump has vowed to file lawsuits in closely contested states tomorrow and take his fight to the Supreme Court.
In a statement, he said: ‘We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed. The simple fact is this election is far from over.’
Last night, Mr Trump continued to fire off angry tweets in capital letters, again alleging fraud without providing any evidence.
After returning from his golf match to the White House via a side-gate to avoid the celebrations outside, he unleashed a tirade on Twitter, declaring all in capitals: ‘I won the election, got 71,000,000 legal votes. Bad things happened which our observers were not allowed to see. Never happened before!’ The tweet was flagged by Twitter as being misleading.
Republican sources told The Mail on Sunday that Mr Trump will refuse to attend his successor’s inauguration next year, will not offer the traditional Oval Office handover, and has labelled Mr Biden ‘the phoney President’.
Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani told reporters that one of the lawsuits will claim that hundreds of dead Philadelphia residents were allowed to vote, including the actor Will Smith’s late father Willard.
There was only muted backing for Mr Trump’s refusal to accept defeat from Republican colleagues. But party chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said: ‘The media doesn’t decide who wins elections – voters do.’
As tens of thousands of Americans celebrated on the streets of New York, Los Angeles and Washington DC, messages of congratulations for Mr Biden poured in. Boris
Johnson tweeted: ‘Congratulations to Joe Biden on his election as President of the United States and to Kamala Harris on her historic achievement. The US is our most important ally and I look forward to working closely together on our shared priorities, from climate change to trade and security.’
Mr Obama said: ‘We’re fortunate that Joe’s got what it takes to be President and already carries himself that way because when he walks into the White House in January, he’ll face a series of extraordinary challenges no incoming President ever has – a raging pandemic, an unequal economy and justice system, a democracy at risk, and a climate in peril.’
Hillary Clinton, who was defeated by Mr Trump in the 2016 presidential race, called the result ‘a new page for America’. And Mr Biden’s wife Jill tweeted a picture from their home in Delaware of them both posing with an old placard, in which she had cheekily covered the first word in ‘Vice President’.
While his supporters were jubilant, Mr Biden’s narrow victory signalled only what one Washington insider called ‘a long, tough rough ahead’. The race was far closer than expected, with Mr Biden securing 74 million votes against 71million for Mr Trump.
‘This was not the resounding victory the Democrats had hoped for,’ said the insider. ‘Mr Biden is going to have a hard time getting things done. He’s only just squeaked in. Trump has millions of supporters and they’re not going away quietly.’
‘Let’s put the anger and harsh rhetoric behind us’