Just before 2:30am Wednesday, during a still-undecided election, President Trump gathered supporters at the White House to let them know he thought a "major fraud" was occurring, because he hadn't yet been declared the winner. "As far as I'm concerned, we already have won it," he said. This announcement came shortly after the president put up a potentially misleading tweet that baselessly noted Democrats "are trying to STEAL the Election" and that "votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed" (Twitter hid that tweet, per its protocol on disputed posts). But Trump's White House announcement that he was the victor drew immediate pushback from news organizations, including from on-air TV anchors who promptly informed viewers that his statements were false. Who said what, per the AP and NPR, which notes a scenario that "newsrooms have been buzzing about ... for weeks":
- NBC News' Savannah Guthrie, who'd interrupted Trump's White House speech at various points to tell viewers what he was saying wasn't true, put it most plainly: "The fact of the matter is we don't know who won the election."