RUBY:

From Schwartz Media I’m Ruby Jones this is 7am.

Riots have erupted in the US - as protestors react to Donald Trump’s attempts to cling to power.

Archival tape -- protests:

“Every vote counts, count every vote that’s the phrase echoing along fifth avenue right now…”

RUBY:

As Trump’s grasp on the Presidency slips out of his fingers, his campaign has announced a number of legal challenges aimed at disrupting the vote count.

Archival tape -- Reporter:

“The trump campaign is now filing a lawsuit to stop the counting of votes…”

Archival tape -- Reporter:

“He is challenging votes that were happening on election night that were still being counted in the hours after the election…”

RUBY:

In some states Trump is attempting to completely stop any further counting.

Archival tape -- Trump:

“We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 in the morning and add them to the list okay….”

RUBY:

While the current President is digging in, Joe Biden’s position in key states continues to strengthen, placing him on the cusp of victory.

Archival tape -- Biden:

“This will not be my victory alone or our victory alone. It will be a victory for the American people. For our democracy, for America…”

RUBY:

Today, journalist Oscar Schwartz, on the likelihood of Trump hijacking the result, and what a potential Biden presidency could look like.

So, Oscar, at this point in time, a Biden victory looks likely. However, we know that Donald Trump claimed that he had won very early on in all of this. So let's talk a bit about what Trump and his team have been saying about the result.

OSCAR:

So on election night, I went to bed just after Biden came out at one of his car rallies in his home state of Delaware.
And his message was have patience let's count the vote, but he was optimistic.

Archival tape -- Biden:

“But who knew we were going to go maybe tomorrow morning, maybe even longer. But look, we feel good about where we are. We really do.”

OSCAR:

Then later on election night or early that morning, Trump did what many predicted.
And in a speech from the East room of the white house, he declared that he was the Victor of the 2020 election.

Archival tape -- Trump:

“We were getting ready to win this election, frankly we did win this election…”

OSCAR:

Despite the fact that there was millions of outstanding ballots left to be counted in several key States. He also started attacking the legitimacy of the vote, counting efforts, calling them fraudulent.

Archival tape -- Trump:

“This is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we’ll be going to the US supreme court… “

OSCAR:

And then the next morning on Twitter, he started claiming States like Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan again, despite the vote, not being fully counted and Biden, even leading in some.

RUBY:

So while Trump is publicly claiming victory and threatening these legal challenges, actual votes were being counted. So what happened in those case key states once the ballots closed?

OSCAR:

So on election night itself, things were looking pretty close.

Archival tape -- Reporter:

“This is a race that is too close to call, so nobody is being declared a winner here…”

OSCAR:

There were a couple of crucial States like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, where Trump appeared to be ahead.

Archival tape -- Reporter:

“Now in Pennsylvania Donald Trump standing on 56% compared to Joe Biden’s 41%... “

OSCAR:

But then...

Archival tape -- Reporter:

“We talked about the progression over the last several hours.. The progression in Wisconsin, the progression in Michigan”

OSCAR:

In later counting, the results started looking better for Biden because of the count of all those mail in votes.

Archival tape -- Reporter:

“ABC news is now projecting Joe Biden will win the key state of Michigan…”

OSCAR:

And then Michigan and Wisconsin of course were eventually declared for him.

Archival tape -- Reporter:

“Yeah this is huge Joe Biden, a pretty big blow to the President…”

OSCAR:

So what about the remaining States? Well, North Carolina looks like a hold for Trump, Georgia and Pennsylvania are really, really close, but leaning Biden, Arizona and Nevada looked likely for Biden. Uh, and if Biden, Arizona and Nevada, that's enough for him to win it from here. And I guess this is looking likely at this stage.

RUBY:

So even as counting is continuing and Biden’s position is looking more and more secure, Donald Trump is doubling down on his accusations of fraud and trying to interfere by launching legal action?

OSCAR:

Yes. So this was always going to happen.

Archival tape -- Reporter:

“The president’s biggest battle grounds, the courtrooms in the states that will decide the presidential race…”

OSCAR:

Trump was going to question the count back. Um, he, he was always saying that mail-in was fraudulent and yeah.

Archival tape -- Trump:

“I’m not gonna say which party does it but thousands of votes are gathered and they’re dumped in a location and then all of a sudden you lose an election you think you’re going to win”

OSCAR:

And now we're seeing him really lean into that.

Archival tape -- Reporter:

“His campaign threatening a recount in Wisconsin…”

OSCAR:

Calling for a count back in Wisconsin and I'm already filing lawsuits in Pennsylvania.

RUBY:

And so, as it's becoming clear that Joe Biden is ahead, what has he himself been saying about the results and also about Trump's claims?

Archival tape -- Biden:

“..My fellow Americans, yesterday once again proved that democracy is the heartbeat of this nation.”

OSCAR:

So he's more or less maintained his line. It's wait for the count, but he's optimistic.

Archival tape -- Biden:

“And now after a long night of counting, it’s clear that we’re winning enough states to reach 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency…”

OSCAR:

He's not claiming victory yet.

Archival tape -- Biden:

“I’m not here to declare that we’ve won. But I am here to report that when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners.”

OSCAR:

So we're in a situation where we have Biden, who seems likely to become the next President, but he's facing an incumbent who seems like he's accusing the election of being rigged and is going to double down on that.

So this means we're in for a really tumultuous few weeks, regardless of what happens to the actual votes that are counted in the next little while.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Oscar, at this moment in time Biden is closing in on the presidency. While it’s still too early to call it, especially given Trump’s demands for a recount and his legal threats, I do want to talk about what a Biden presidency might actually look like. So what are his key policies?

OSCAR:

So in the short term, I guess he just really wants to address the pandemic differently to how Trump has gone about it.

Archival tape -- Biden:

“The core principle is simple, public health professionals must be the ones making our public health decisions.”

OSCAR:

He wants to set up a national contact tracing programme. He wants to establish testing centres in every state. And he also wants to provide free coronavirus testing to all and supports the nationwide mask mandate.

Archival tape -- Biden:

“So let’s institute a mask mandate nationwide starting immediately, and we will save lives. The estimate is we will save 40,000 lives…”

OSCAR:

In terms of the environment he wants the US to reach net zero emissions by 2050, along with a $2 trillion investment in green energy, he will also sign back onto the Paris accord.

Archival tape -- Biden:

“I will join the Paris Accord because with us out of it look at what’s happening, it’s all falling apart.”

OSCAR:

He also wants to reverse Trump's tax cuts and raise taxes for those earning over $400,000 a year. Economically he also wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 from what it's currently at. It's $7.25. And he also wants to protect and expand the affordable care act, which of course he was closely involved with during the Obama administration.

Archival tape -- Biden:

“If you qualify for Medicaid and the state hasn’t provided it, you’d automatically be enrolled. I’m going to protect you like I try to protect my own family, I promise you that…”

OSCAR:

Despite he is inheriting a raging pandemic, an economic disaster, an incumbent who will refuse to concede, um, a conservative Supreme court and a nation divided. So I think the first few months of a Biden presidency will be a matter of putting out spot fires rather than implementing these kinds of longer term plans.

RUBY:

And Oscar, Americans didn't just vote for a president this week. They also voted for congressional representatives and senators. So what has happened in those races and, and what does it mean for Biden's agenda?

OSCAR:

Yeah, so the Democrats haven't done as well as they thought they would.

Nothing fundamentally has changed. The Democrats have held the house and the Republicans have held the Senate. They were hoping for a flip of the Senate, but that hasn't happened. They haven't done as well there. And they lost a few key races that they thought they were a chance to win.

So basically that means going forward no matter who wins, we're going to see more political gridlock. And it means that it will be extremely difficult for him to pass any meaningful legislation that changes key policies.

I mean, Mitch McConnell showed during the Obama administration just how difficult he could make it, um, for Obama's policies to get through.

Archival tape -- Mitch McConnell:

“This is full board socialism on the march in the house. As long as I’m the leader of the senate, none of that stuff is going anywhere”

OSCAR:

And it will be the same for Biden.

RUBY:

Oscar, as it currently stands, Donald Trump is threatening legal action in multiple states. While there isn’t much detail right now about exactly what he’s planning, how seriously should we be taking Trump? Could his threats change the outcome?

OSCAR:

I think we should be taking it as seriously as possible. So the way I see it, I think there's kind of two scenarios from here. The first one is that Biden takes Arizona and Nevada, the Republicans and the conservative media respect the outcome. And eventually Trump has to concede. And so far, the Republicans have basically held the line of count the vote, even Fox news seems to be driven by counting the vote at this stage.

But the second scenario I think is a little bit scarier. So let's say it remains extremely close in a number of these key battleground States like super, super close. Then the lawsuits begin to multiply. As we talked about, Trump's already demanding a recount in Wisconsin and challenging the counting process in Pennsylvania. He does have some allies like Giuliani, who claiming that dead people have voted in Pennsylvania.

Archival tape -- Giuliani:

“You have a reputation for dead people voting here, I didn’t think we’d have to do that but we will.”

OSCAR:

So in the meantime, I think if this transpires Trump based off what we've seen so far, we'll leverage this chaos on Twitter, he'll spread the message of voter fraud. He'll begin to pressure Republican allies to back him in, and then they will start to increase this legal assault trying to appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court.

And I think that all of it depends on Trump being able to bend reality in the coming weeks. He has to convince enough people that the vote was in fact, fraudulent, despite there being a distinct lack of evidence at this stage that this is the case, but his entire presidency really has been about refining this ability to bend the truth and making politics feel like this epistemic free for all where anything could be true. I just wonder whether Americans and the institutions here will be able to withstand this. And ultimately the faster Biden can secure the 270 to stop Trump from doing this reality bending the better off this country will be.

RUBY:

Hmm. So a real test then of, of all of the US’s institutions. And at this point in time, you're saying that bets are still off as to, as to what Donald Trump might do.

OSCAR:

Yeah. I think the only thing that I would put a bet on is that he won't concede.

RUBY:

Oscar. Thank you so much for talking to me again.

OSCAR:

Thanks Ruby.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

A Melbourne man has been charged with preparing an act of foreign interference after a year-long probe by ASIO and the Australian Federal Police.

He is the first person in Australia to be charged with a foreign interference offence since federal parliament passed the laws in 2018.

And protests have erupted across the United States from both sides of the political divide.

Protesters in cities including Oakland, Chicago and Boston have called for every vote to be counted while Trump supporters gathered outside a Detroit voting centre calling for counting to stop.

The National Guard has been activated in Portland after a demonstration turned violent.