Category: News

This year’s presidential election is a two-horse race, and it’s a real edge-of-your-seat affair, even after Election Day. Donald Trump and Joe Biden have remained within a handful of electoral college votes of each other since results started coming in, which was naturally made things stressful for people heavily invested in the outcome. That includes Cardi B, who found her own way to cope with the stress yesterday.

Last night, she shared a video of herself smoking not one, not two, but three cigarettes at the same time and wrote, “How these elections got me watching these states turn red.”

Cardi has been as outspoken against Donald Trump as anybody in pop culture. For example, in January, she called him a “terrorist.”

Back in October 2019, Cardi expressed her belief that Trump could end up getting re-elected, saying, “I really hate to say it, but sometimes I do believe that Trump will be winning (the election). Just because due to the fact that every single time I don’t see nobody saying that they love a Democratic candidate. There’s no candidate that people are saying we love, we want them to win.”

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Just days before the election, Lil Wayne shared a photo of himself with Donald Trump and offered some glowing words about the president. That’s a great way to stir up backlash in 2020, and he got plenty of it. The situation has apparently had an impact on his love life as well, as it appears he has been broken up with over the endorsement.

Wayne was dating model Denise Bidot, but yesterday, before deactivating her Instagram account, she shared a cryptic message, writing in an Instagram Story, “Sometimes love just isn’t enough…,” followed by a broken heart emoji. The pair also unfollowed each other on Instagram. Additionally, Vulture reports that according to gossip blogger Love B. Scott, one of Bidot’s friends said, “She broke up with Wayne. It wasn’t just his Trump support, but that was a big part. [Denise] was shocked when she saw Wayne come out with Trump. She’s so disappointed in him.”

Alongside the Trump photo Wayne shared, he wrote, “Just had a great meeting with @realdonaldtrump @potus besides what he’s done so far with criminal reform, the platinum plan is going to give the community real ownership. He listened to what we had to say today and assured he will and can get it done.”

Last week, President Trump laid tweet-groundwork to pressure the Supreme Court into shutting down a Biden win. Now, he’s attempting to finish the job, even before all votes have been counted after Election Night turned out to be an indecisive event (so far). Votes still must be counted in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and other battleground states, and we could be waiting for days on results. Whereas Joe Biden urged Americans to remain patient while those last ballots are tallied, Trump (unsurprisingly) isn’t content to sit around and wait. He stepped up with a misspelled tweet and with a speech that both falsely claimed victory: “Frankly, we did win this election… We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court… we want all voting to stop.”

Trump is arguing that the election’s being “stolen” from him, and yeah, he’s blowing steam as usual, but in a more harmful way. Tellingly, too, some of his most outspoken supporters are slamming his decision to behave like an authoritarian. There’s a rapid accumulation of Republican distancing from this Trump move. That includes Fox News (which may no longer be Trump’s favorite news outlet after they called Arizona for Biden), which is definitely not endorsing the false victory claim.

“This is an extremely flammable situation and the president just threw a match into it,” Chris Wallace declared. “He hasn’t won these states … the president doesn’t get to say he won states … there’s no question that all these states can continue to count votes.”

On ABC News, former U.S. attorney Chris Christie told it straight on the absurd “victory” claim. “There’s just no basis to make that argument tonight… There just isn’t… I disagree with what he did tonight.”

“All these votes have to be counted that are in now in Pennsylvania,” Christie explained. “The argument won’t even start in Pennsylvania until tomorrow or Thursday or Friday because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended for three days when you could accept ballots. I understand there could be an argument on that based on Pennsylvania law, but that argument is for later. Tonight, this was not the time to make this argument.”

Marco Rubio (who doesn’t know what a “blue wave” is) is also telling his boy to sit down: “The result of the presidential race will be known after every legally cast vote has been counted.”

Rick Santorum is “very distressed” that Trump’s tossing the word “fraud” around about, you know, the legitimate counting of votes.

Former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton called Trump’s words “the most irresponsible comments a president has ever made.”

Even Ben Shaprio seems embarrassed: “No, Trump has not already won the election, and it is deeply irresponsible for him to say he has.”

Lana Del Rey, like many of her musical peers, have been outspoken with her disdain for Donald Trump. That didn’t stop at least one fan from being convinced last night that Del Rey voted for Trump this year, an accusation that Del Rey didn’t take lying down.

Last night, Del Rey livestreamed some election coverage on Instagram Live, and somebody shared a snippet of her broadcast that made it look like Del Rey supported Trump. Del Rey replied to the post, “Choosing this misleading clip out of the entire livestream Isn’t going to get you more livestreams.”

Some people were convinced that Del Rey voted to re-elect Trump, though, with one fan tweeting, “I just KNOW Elizabeth voted for Trump, I wish I could look up her voting records. Something doesn’t sit right with me.” Del Rey responded succinctly, “Go. Fuxk. Yourself.” The fan then responded, “Lana telling me to go f*ck myself when I have her tattooed on my arm lmfaoooo alright then.” Lana replied, “Nah read what u wrote hoe.”

Del Rey has spoken out against Trump on multiple occasions over the years. She confirmed in 2017 that she tried to place a hex on Trump, saying, “Yeah, I did it. Why not? Look, I do a lot of sh*t. […] I’m in line with Yoko [Ono] and John [Lennon] and the belief that there’s a power to the vibration of a thought. Your thoughts are very powerful things and they become words, and words become actions, and actions lead to physical changes.”

The next year, after Kanye West declared his support for Trump, Del Rey (who performed at Kanye and Kim Kardashian’s wedding in 2014) expressed her disappointment, saying, “Trump becoming our president was a loss for the country but your support of him is a loss for the culture. I can only assume you relate to his personality on some level. Delusions of grandeur, extreme issues with narcissism. If you think it’s alright to support someone who believes it’s OK to grab a woman by the pussy just because he’s famous-then you need an intervention as much as he does.”

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, the day after Election Day, Donald Trump falsely claimed that he won the presidential election against Joe Biden. “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. So our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this national,” he said, calling it a “very sad moment” in American history. Speaking of very sad moments: Trump sayinga he won the election without actually winning is exactly what Bernie Sanders predicted would happen months ago.

To be fair, it’s something many of us could have guessed would happen, but it’s still (depressingly) prescient. The clip comes from the October 23rd episode of The Tonight Show, with the one-time presidential candidate telling host Jimmy Fallon, “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 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 nailed 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 re-electing me. It’s all over. Have a good day.’ But then next day and the day following, all those mail-in ballots start getting counted, and it turns out that Biden has 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.’ So that is a worry I and a lot of people have.”

Bernie wasn’t right about everything, however: Trump waited until 2:30 a.m., not 10 p.m., to declare himself the victor. His prediction is still going viral.

No one (not even her critics) can accuse Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) of not having an impeccable social-media game. Even more tellingly, it’s obvious that she writes her own tweets, and whether she’s jousting with Big Oil or calling out silly and sexist takes from the GOP about fashion, AOC is equally at ease while confronting opponents. On Election Tuesday, however, AOC found herself in the position of talking to her own party while the U.S. as a whole awaits presidential results.

Granted, AOC certainly had reason to celebrate. She won her second-term bid for New York’s 14th congressional district, and other members of “The Squad” (Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, all women of color like AOC) also won relection. AOC’s victory was no surprise, however, unlike the disconcerting non-results for the biggest election race in the U.S. Since multiple battleground areas won’t post results for days (possibly not until Friday), AOC had advice different from that of CNN’s Jake Tapper (who warned, “Don’t get high on your own supply”). AOC believes that Biden could have adopted a more Latino-friendly strategy with the Latino community.

“I won’t comment much on tonight’s results as they are evolving and ongoing,” AOC tweeted. “[B]ut I will say we’ve been sounding the alarm about Dem vulnerabilities w/ Latinos for a long, long time… There is a strategy and a path, but the necessary effort simply hasn’t been put in.”

“We have work to do,” she added.

It’s a fair set of statements, given that Biden did focus a lot more on the Rust Belts that Hillary Clinton did in 2016, but with Trump (almost certainly) taking Florida, Biden likely underperformed with a very important community in that state. Again, we probably won’t know for days whether this omission will cost Biden the election, but yep, AOC has certainly pointed out some room for Democratic improvement in the future.

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.

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.

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.

No one knows anything for sure tonight in the U.S. except for one thing: this presidential election is a nail-biting event. John King is apparently frustrated with Wolf Blitzer’s excitement, and Martin King Jr.’s daughter is fed up with Mitch McConnell’s victory speech out of Kentucky, and so many states are still too close to call in the Trump-Biden race. We were already in for a long night, and now, we’re in for a long week while waiting for actual results in multiple battleground areas that will post tallies in the days to come. So, when Jake Tapper finally surfaced on CNN’s airwaves around 10:00pm EST, he advised viewers to chill out while waiting.

Then Tapper’s terminology grew more ominous when he declared that Democrats were certainly too optimistic while hoping for a Biden landslide. As he put it, “You can’t get high on your own supply.”

What’s going on with CNN? The analogy’s solid, considering the full quote: “There were a lot of people out there who paid attention to the most Trump-hating pundits out there, who were saying for months that this was going to be a landslide, and as they say, ‘You can’t get high on your own supply.’” Still, it’s an unexpected reference to see on cable news, despite our unusual election circumstances.

Is Tapper a secret Narcos: Mexico fan? Well, that quote probably goes back much further, all the way to Al Pacino’s 1983 turn in the Brian De Palma-directed Scarface remake. And some people are pulling Biggie Smalls’ “10 Crack Commandments” lyrics into this. We’re all looking for some levity here while stressing out, so let’s do this.

Hang in there, everyone.

Election night in America was long presumed to be a long one in the longest year on record, and unfortunately for those watching CNN, anchor Wolf Blitzer didn’t take it any more comfortable for them. Blitzer got on a lot of viewers’ bad sides early in the night with his constant pointing out just how close the race was in certain states, especially early on in the night when, well, not a lot of votes had been counted in full.

This is kind of a habit for Blitzer, so perhaps we should not be surprised by what CNN looked like in the early hours of election night coverage. But even CNN colleague John King couldn’t keep up the act and had to express his frustration with Blitzer’s comments.

As Mediaite documented on video, Blitzer was extremely amped up early about basically every result, leading to both getting snippy during the early hours of the coverage:

A notable back and forth occurred while King was reporting on Florida’s incoming results:

“Florida is now in. Look how close it is,” Blitzer said.

“Florida is close. That’s not breaking news. That part is not breaking news,” King replied.

People certainly noticed that Wolf was extremely excited early on.

Blitzer’s battles with King got a lot of people Tweeting through their frustrations, and making jokes.

Even The Onion got in on the act.

The phrase “too close to call” or “too early to call” is basically synonymous with election coverage, but Blitzer certainly made it his signature statement on Saturday.

There was a chance that Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, would lose his re-election campaign in Kentucky, but not a very good one. Despite actually laughing at critiques of his mishandling of the pandemic, he still became one of the first major winners of Election Night, with most outlets calling his win over Democratic challenger Amy McGrath relatively early on, paving the path for his seventh term in the U.S. Senate. What many perhaps didn’t expect is that he would have the brass to invoke no less than Martin Luther King Jr. in his victory speech. But that’s exactly what he did.

“When I witnessed Dr. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington speech as an intern in 1963, I dreamed about doing big things to help my state and our country,” McConnell told the crowd, with zero apparent sense of shame or care that his words could go viral, and not in a good way. “I never imagined Kentuckyians would make me the longest-serving senator in our state’s history.”

McConnell’s statement, naturally, had a lot of detractors. Among the most prominent? King’s youngest daughter, Berenice King. The minister and CEO of The King Center, wasn’t having it, and she was quick to make her thoughts known over social media.

“But my father’s dream was to create the #BelovedCommunity, in part by eradicating #racism, #militarism and #poverty. Certainly not by denying #healthcare to human beings or by separating Brown immigrant children from their parents,” King wrote over Twitter, adding the hashtags “#TripleEvils #BigThings #BeLove”

King wasn’t the only one horrified and disgusted by McConnell’s words.

McConnell, who’s 78, defeated McGrath, a retired Marine combat pilot who challenged him as a political outsider. As of this writing, there’s still a chance McConnell will no longer be the Senate Majority Leader.