LAST GASP

Kellyanne Conway Absurdly Claims Trump Never Declared Victory on Election Night

“But Kellyanne, the president came out on Election Night and said he won,” Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum said, interrupting her guest.

By Matt Wilstein & Andrew KirellNov 05, 2020

As Fox News viewers waited for President Donald Trump to speak to the American people for the first time since his deeply dishonest and dangerous address late into the night on Election Day, they were treated to some equally misleading spin from his former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.

During an earlier appearance on Fox, Conway directly contradicted the president’s “STOP THE COUNT” message by urging “patience,” an argument she repeated on Thursday evening. When Conway started attacking Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon, however, for suggesting that her candidate was on his way to victory in the presidential race, anchor Martha MacCallum interrupted her. “But Kellyanne, the president came out on Election Night and said he won while there were still all these ballots to be counted.”

“Sure,” Conway replied. “I think what the president was meaning there is that he had won, meaning earlier in the night he had the race won, people were projecting that some of these states that were supposed to turn blue,” citing Florida, Ohio and Texas—none of which Biden was counting on to win the presidency.

Neither MacCallum nor Bret Baier pushed back on Conway’s outright false characterization of Trump’s Election Night comments.

In fact, he explicitly declared victory in both Georgia and North Carolina, neither of which have been called two nights later.

“This is a fraud on the American public,” Trump said. “This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.”

In his first remarks since making that speech, the president doubled down on his premature declaration of victory, saying, “If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.”