A little over a week ago, US Senator Bernie Sanders appeared on The Tonight Show with host Jimmy Fallon to talk about the US Presidential elections. He spoke about why he endorsed Joe Biden, why the election results will take longer than usual and breaks down why Texas is the future of progressive politics. However, a small clip from the episode went viral on Wednesday, shortly after Donald Trump made a small ‘victory speech’ even as the counting of votes was underway.
"Although the election is November 3rd and it's been said that we won't know the results until days later, when do you think we'll know the results?" Fallon had asked on the show. Bernie started by saying, "Jimmy, you raise an important point, and I hope the American people understand it, because this is something I worry about.”
"My view is — every vote must be counted. For reasons which I don't have the time to get into tonight, you're going to have a situation — I suspect — in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, other states, where they are going to be receiving huge amounts of mail-in ballots. And unlike states like Florida or Vermont, they're not able - for bad reasons - to begin processing those ballots until, I don't know, Election Day or maybe when the polls close. That means you're going to have states dealing with perhaps millions of mail-in ballots,” he said.
"Here is my worry," Sanders went on to say. "What polls show, and what studies have shown is that, for whatever reason, Democrats are more likely to use mail-in ballots, Republicans are more likely to walk into polling booths on Election Day. It is likely that the first votes that will be counted will be those people who came in on Election Day, which will be Republican.”
Bernie then correctly predicted that Trump may announce a victory prematurely and may ask for the counting of votes to be stopped midway.
"And here is the fear — and I hope everybody hears it. It could well be that at 10 o'clock on election night, Trump is winning in Michigan, he's winning in Pennsylvania, he's winning in Wisconsin, and he gets on the television and he says, 'Thank you, Americans, for reelecting me, it's all over, have a good day.' But then, the next day, and the day following, all of those mail-in ballots start getting counted, and it turns out that Biden was won those states, at which point Trump says, 'See? I told you the whole thing was fraudulent. I told you those mail-in ballots were crooked. And we're not going to leave office.' That is a worry that I and a lot of people have. So we do not know what is going to happen but People should be aware of that possibility."
Watch what Bernie Sanders had said on the show:
Even as many millions of votes are yet to be counted, Trump alleged a “fraud” was being carried out and said he will fight the election in the Supreme Court. The presidential election is headed to a nail-biter, with Biden having won 225 electoral college votes and Trump following with 213. The winner should have at least 270 electoral college votes out of the 538.
Addressing a select gathering of his supporters in the East Room of the White House at 2 am on Wednesday, Trump asserted that he has won the 2020 presidential election.
"All of a sudden everything just stopped. This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election," Trump said, without citing any evidence of fraud in the electoral process.