Election night was not exactly satisfying, especially for the millions of Americans who hoped the trajectory of the next four years would be decided quickly once polls closed. Among those upset was president Donald Trump, who shortly after midnight tweeted a baseless accusation that the election was being, in his eyes, unfairly taken away from him. This saw swift rebuke across the board, including by CNN anchor Jake Tapper.
While the most exciting moment of the election’s early coverage may have been a battle between John King and Wolf Blitzer, Jake Tapper soon took charge, stepping up to offer a strong rebuke of Trump, who claimed to be up “big” and, once again, alleged voter fraud without proof.
The tweet came shortly after Joe Biden spoke in Delaware, where he pled with Americans to practice patience and wait for all votes to be counted. States like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and even Georgia were waiting for large numbers of absentee and early votes to be counted, while North Carolina and other states remained up in the air. That led Tapper to rebuke the president shortly after midnight, taking aim at the tweet and the dangerous accusation that the election was being stolen.
“No one is trying to steal the election,” Tapper said. “Counting votes is how this works.”
Tapper also pointed out that Trump’s baseless accusation misspelled “polls,” then going on to call the claims that nameless people are trying to “steal” the election a dangerous accusation.
Jake Tapper: “The fact that the President misspelled “polls” is just *chef’s kiss*” pic.twitter.com/MTpehUUeL4
— gifdsports (@gifdsports) November 4, 2020
Even NBC’s Brian Williams made fun of the misspelling. Soon thereafter, the tweet was deleted and replaced with one that had “Polls” spelled correctly.
And Brian Williams joins in on the fun: “… in this case, it’s capitalized as if someone is closing the Polish people, so …” pic.twitter.com/CVFJl13eqe
— The Recount (@therecount) November 4, 2020
It’s worth noting that Twitter, however, immediately hid that tweet behind a disclaimer that “Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.” Which, of course, is correct. But that has rarely mattered for the president over the last four years, and it certainly didn’t matter on election night.