'I mean, what is the rush all of a sudden?'
Kellyanne Conway undermined Donald Trump's demand for an immediate election result on Thursday.
In a Fox News interview, his former White House counselor and 2016 campaign manager made a strong argument for Americans to wait patiently for every vote to be counted.
"We spent three years — they spent three years investigating the president, impeaching the president. We can't wait three hours, three days, three weeks, to get a result in our great, sturdy democracy as to whom the next president will be?" Conway asked. "I mean, what is the rush all of a sudden?"
But it is Donald Trump and his team who have been demanding a premature, pro-Trump verdict before all of the votes are cast. "STOP THE COUNT!" Trump tweeted on Thursday morning.
In July, Trump tweeted: "Must know Election results on the night of the Election, not days, months, or even years later."
"You have to have a date, and the date happens to be Nov. 3, and we should be entitled to know who won on Nov. 3," he told reporters on Tuesday.
Late on election night, Trump baselessly declared victory, claiming wins in some states he likely lost. "Frankly, we did win this election," he told the nation, though millions of ballots had not yet been counted. He also urged that election officials not be allowed to "find any ballots at 4 o'clock in the morning and add them to the list, okay?"
As mail-in ballots have been counted over the past two days, especially in Democratic-leaning areas, Trump has seen his lead shrink or vanish in places such as Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He has falsely claimed that this ongoing tabulation somehow amounts to votes being "cast after the Polls are closed."
He also suggested without evidence that the vote counting was rigged. "Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the 'pollsters' got it completely & historically wrong!" he tweeted on Wednesday.
He and his supporters also announced, based on nothing, that he had won Pennsylvania, with his narrow lead in the state getting even narrower as blue areas counted their remaining ballots.
On Wednesday, Trump's campaign filed lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania seeking to halt the vote tabulation process. Trump supporters stormed a Detroit vote-tallying center, chanting, "Stop the count!"
Trump has taken contradictory positions on ballot counting over the past few days. While he complained about counting too many votes in states where early counts showed him with an initial lead, he also demanded that news outlets wait to call a winner in states where he trailed, such as Arizona. He has urged all votes be counted only in states where he trails Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
The American public's decision could become clear as early as Thursday, as states such as Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania complete their vote counts.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
