Three major U.S. TV networks interrupt Trump’s bluffing speech about electoral...

The clocks were approaching 7 pm on Thursday on the US East Coast (9 pm in Brasilia) when Donald Trump launched an unprecedented message at the White House: “If we count the legal votes, we win easily. If we count the illegal ones, they will try to rob us ”. Thus began a speech that indicated from the first minutes a historic damage to the American electoral system by a representative of the country. Even by Trump standards, the unfounded accusations launched on Thursday night, suggesting massive electoral fraud in the United States, represent an unprecedented affront to institutions and achieve the goal of throwing gas in a country more polarized than ever. Three major broadcasters, ABC, CBS and NBC, decided to stop the broadcast when they saw a danger in these words without proof. The only channels that continued to deliver the speech were CNN and Fox News.

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In his address to the press, the first on Thursday, the president showed his head down, like a bad loser, given the minimal advantage – but increasingly solid – of his democratic rival, Joe Biden. Trump aimed directly at his main target: the vote by mail. These ballots are favoring Democrats in a frantic poll, which leaves the country on watch. And he insinuated that his opponents control these systems and use it to his advantage, but he has provided no evidence of that. “Our goal is to defend the integrity of the election,” he went on to state.

In the middle of this speech, the three main channels of free TV interrupted the transmission. “We are here again in the unusual position of not only interrupting the President of the United States, but also of correcting the President of the United States …” commented the NBC host, while Trump could still be heard in the background. The press has been another target of the president’s attacks since he came to power, and with this gesture, when thousands of votes are still missing to make the winner known, journalists have put a stop to it.

On CNN, the broadcast was not interrupted, but immediately after the president turned his back, presenter Jake Tapper made this statement: “Falsely accusing people of trying to steal the elections, trying to attack democracy like this with their festival of lies. Lie back of lies, behind lies … “. Already on the conservative Fox News channel, the presenters practically repeated the litany of unfounded accusations made by Trump, but even there the presenter admitted that there was “no evidence that fraud had occurred”.

The Hispanic network Univision also stopped showing the presidential pronouncement. “Part of what President Trump said is a lie. It is not true what President Trump said about illegal votes that prevent his victory. He didn’t present any kind of evidence ”, said presenter Jorge Ramos.

The social network Twitter, often used by Trump to communicate, also censored some of the messages sent by President Trump after the White House speech. In them, the republican repeated parts of his speech in which he classified Philadelphia (capital of Pennsylvania, one of the disputed states that has not yet concluded its investigation) as “one of the most corrupt places in the country” and insisted that he would not allow “to steal the election”. It is not the first time that Twitter has labeled Trump’s messages as “misleading” – he had already done so on election night, when the Republican also made accusations without evidence.

Trump has been talking about possible postal vote fraud for months, even with no indication of it. It is a system widely used in US elections since the late 1990s. This year, more Americans than ever have voted this way, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Traditionally, Democrats vote more by mail, while Republicans generally prefer to cast their votes in person, mostly on official polling day.