Even as the counting of votes continues, a clip of Bernie Sanders' old interview with Jimmy Fallon has gone viral for rightly predicting how President Donald Trump will react as the counting of votes began.
Sanders, who dropped out of the US presidential race following a series of losses to Joe Biden, appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on October 23 where he predicted that Trump will prematurely declare victory before the counting of the ballots ends.
Tallying of votes continued through a second night in the remaining battleground states where huge turnout and a mountain of mail-in ballots sent by voters trying to avoid exposure to the coronavirus made the job all the harder.
Asked when the results would be in, Sanders said: "This is something I am worried about."
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The Socialist Democratic leader said that as per studies Democrats are more likely to use mail-in ballots, while Republicans are more likely to walk into the polling booth on election day.
He went on to predict the Trump's premature declaration of re-election, saying, "Here's my fear. It could well be that on 10'o clock on Election Night, Trump is winning in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin. And he gets on the television and says "Thank you Americans, for re-electing me"."
But when the actual numbers from these states are revealed after counting of mail-in ballots is over, and Biden is revealed to be the winner in those states, Trump may claim the results of the mail-in ballots are rigged, Sanders added.
As we now know, this is exactly how it played out.
Trump falsely declared victory over Biden, with millions of votes still uncounted. His remarks came hours after a tweet in which he said: "We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!"
Read: Donald Trump falsely claims victory, tells supporters 'we are winning everything'
Trump began his address saying he wanted to thank Americans for voting for him, stating: “We are winning everything.”
“I want to thank the American people for voting for us. I want to thank my entire family and the vice president. We were winning everything. Such a vote, such a success. There has never been anything like this. We won Ohio, we won Texas by 700,000 votes. It’s clear that we have won Georgia,” Trump claimed.
"The damage has already been done to the integrity of our system, and to the Presidential Election itself," he tweeted, alleging that "secretly dumped ballots" had been added in Michigan.
Read: Twitter hides Donald Trump's tweet accusing Democrats of trying to 'steal' election
Later, Trump's campaign announced lawsuits in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia and demanded a recount in Wisconsin. In Michigan, the campaign filed a suit to halt vote tabulation, saying its "observers" were not allowed to watch at close distances.
Trump has repeatedly criticised mail-in ballots, saying it will lead to fraud and a rigged election. However, voters relied on postal voting in unprecedented numbers because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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