calendars tell you things to my mind on al-jazeera. unprompted and uninterrupted discussions from london broadcast center. on 20. 0. hello i'm on the inside this is the news hour live from doha with coverage of the increasingly tense wait for definitive u.s. election result. confidence is building among joe biden supporters as he inches closer to the white house

expanding his narrow lead over donald trump. but georgia one of the states still too close to call is set for a recount and legal battles and. ultram continues to make baseless allegations of widespread fraud in states like pennsylvania which officials flatly reject. what the president needs to do is frankly put his big boy pants on he needs to acknowledge the fact that he lost and he needs to congratulate the winner. and all resolved election and a nation on edge 3 days off to one of america's most divisive a knife edge presidential votes it appears that the democratic challenger joe biden is moving further ahead of president donald trump in the battleground states which will decide that final outcome is now. it in pennsylvania nevada

and in georgia so far he's projected to have 1264 electoral college votes trump has 214 of course the magic number required is 270 biden needs only to win one of those undecided states to get over the finishing line. let's start with pennsylvania where biden is ahead of trump by over 15000 votes a decision that could come in the next few hours the remaining 1000000 ballots are mostly from the democratic leaning cities of philadelphia and pittsburgh. biden is also leading in georgia find just over $4000.00 votes in an unusually tight race but officials say they expect a recount as a state law a candidate can request a recount if the margin of difference is within not point 5 percentage points and the state of nevada could well be the last showdown it has the highest percentage

of votes left accounts but those 6 delegates could make or break either candidate and right now joe biden is in the lead there as well in north carolina trump is in the lead by just over 76 and a half 1000 votes that's not a surprise the state has voted republican in every election since 1980 that's except when barack obama won in 2008 and in arizona where votes are still being counted baden's lead has shrunk the time campaign says it's confident of winning the state when all the votes there are $108.00 so while the race is yet to be won the u.s. house speaker democratic nancy pelosi is already describing joe biden as president elect and she and his team of hurting the nation by denying the outcome. it appears that the trump administered will use its final moments in office and the

desperate last step to destroy every possible protection for american health and well being so many people have said to me a private some of you along the way what damage do you think that trump will do between losing the election and the swearing in the inauguration of joe biden maybe you didn't phrase it quite that way but that's how i heard it and we knew that he wouldn't be up to mischief separate and apart from that trying to destroy the credibility of our elections which we criticize other nations for doing and now always our enemies foreign and domestic make an assault on our elections when we have one domestic election officials say there has yet to be any evidence of any voting irregularities but donald trump's republican party says legal teams have been sent to 4 states to investigate. we have seen some discrepancies in michigan

and some irregularities that deserve investigation democrats and the media spent for years and millions of taxpayer dollars talking about a russian hoax on the grounds of election integrity now with just over 48 hours after polls have closed and an actual election for president they want to ignore clear irregularities russia call states as one and the selection we will not stand for that every candidate in every office from president down to the local level has a legal right to challenge irregularities that occur in the process of canvassing ballots we intend to ensure that every lawful voter has their vote counted in accordance with the law that observers are granted the access they are due under state law and that any irregularities that have occurred whether by a malicious attack intent or incompetence are fully investigated to the fullest extent allowed under the law. his. is in

wilmington delaware for us joe biden's home state we have called patty cole hane in philadelphia the all important battleground of pennsylvania and will bring us all the nativist on georgia and of course rob reynolds is monitoring developments for us from our a zone and involves a let's begin with white house correspondent kimberly how could it be called that long unhappy statement from the president yesterday what's the mood from the trumpet come today. well the u.s. president has tweeted in just the last half hour and he's pushing back on some of the assertions that have been made by some democrats including nancy pelosi as we just played there. basically talking about the inauguration of joe biden almost treating him as president elect even though the results of the election have not yet been certified the u.s. president is alleging that joe biden is claiming that he has one of the selection

to be clear joe biden did not say that although he said he was optimistic that that would be the final outcome of the vote donald trump tweeting joe biden should not wrongfully claim the office of the president i could make that claim also legal proceedings are just now beginning i can tell you that the white house is in fighting for the republican national committee is sending out e-mails fund raising to try and put together some $60000000.00 to finance these legal challenges that are across many states and some clay cases the team has already been victorious in the case of pennsylvania they have won a victory and being allowed to see the voting as it is taking place in other states less successful in georgia one of the cases was thrown out before it was even heard given the fact it involves $53.00 votes which the judge considered in consequential still the u.s. president is pushing forward is accusing democrats of trying to steal this election

. it's unclear right now whether or not we're going to hear from the u.s. president officially on his schedule it is one of no public events but again that can change with any moment it appears the president's fully engaged and ready to fight. a main while we are still hearing from all republicans who are starting to distance themselves a little bit from. classic sort of washington politician behavior many republicans well saying they didn't like donald trump when he was sitting the high in popularity they were all willing to sort of ride his coattails when it served their political fortunes but now that it's not looking so bright you're seeing many of those same politicians quickly sort of starting to distance themselves now one person that has already come out quite strongly and distancing himself is the republican senate leader mitch mcconnell he has said that he really supports the vote counting even if donald trump is saying it should stop he has

stopped short of condemning it outright but clearly he is sort of weighing his political future given the fact that the battle for the senate is still underway and it's not clear that he will remain as the senate majority leader we also know that there is support for the counting in the legal sort of resolving of disputes but again many other republicans are remaining silent say nothing at all and these were the same people that were defending the president now when he is in this political fight they are really weighing whether or not they want to speak up for him knowing that donald trump is potentially going to lose this election and they still want to have a seat in congress committee hold kind of white house correspondent for speaking to us from washington let's turn to mike hanna who in joe biden's home state of delaware we are expecting to hear a statement from biden and his running mate coming ahead. in the next

hour we think any ideas what he may say. well i wouldn't be too specific about the timing of what we understand is that he will be speaking in coming hours but it's likely that he and his running mate come on there harris are waiting for project actions of bob to pennsylvania in particular some campaign advisers believe that this may be coming within the next few hours on it is apparent that joe biden will wait for that what i can tell you though is that there's a great deal of secret service sector pretty at the convention center behind me here it is apparent that the forces of the secret service have been mentored very strongly in the past 24 hours once again that is something just to observe this no formal statement about that but what is joe biden likely to talk about he's likely to continue the told that he said this since the polls closed and that is calling

for calm continuing to call for patience talking about what he talked about during his campaign restoring the soul of the country talking about what he did in throughout that campaign as well about creating an end to the bitter partisan division that has arisen particularly over the past 4 years so we're going to be hearing more of the same whether or not he declares victory that appears to be unlikely given the tone of what he's been doing he's wants to wait for the votes to be counted before getting ahead of himself this is a tone that has run down to his campaign as well and campaign officials quietly confident but at the same time nobody is getting out and saying we have won this election they are waiting for the votes to be counted and you would expect perhaps that joe biden will continue the stern calling for calm calling for patience and that is what we are likely to hear when he does arrive at the convention center

here to make that speech presumably though the mood is good in the biden camp because we did hear for him nancy pelosi earlier today even referring to him as president elect. yes it's interesting that that came from the speaker of the house because certainly nobody in the campaign is saying that publicly and particularly joe biden is not saying that publicly but yes there is an air of absolute confidence within the camp the results they've been crunching the numbers since the polls closed and the results they indicate is going one way particularly can solve a new year it could all be over in a way want to see if he gets those electoral votes from pennsylvania that will be a certainty that he will be in the white house so the campaign staying very very confident but at the same time not being brash about to not raise expectations before they come and this as us keep on saying is the tone that joe biden himself

has sit he has been absolutely insistent that there will be no grandstanding he has stayed away from responding for example to the attacks and the false claims by president trump and clearly has instructed his campaign to do likewise what he's talking about and what he's focusing on is the vote and that is the point he wants every single vote to be counted he has emphasized a very important point that should he win he will get the highest amount of votes ever again given to a u.s. president at this particular stage he has a far greater number of votes than any previous presidential candidate so certainly this is something very important to biden because what it does is that it would give his presidency legitimacy and that is a very key issue particularly given the attempts by his opponent to undermine the nature of the selection and the legitimacy of the election itself so very important

for biden to get such a massive turnout in the popular vote my can offend thank you speaking to us from wilmington less 10 to patty culhane who is in philadelphia and patty bring us firstly up today. vote count. there up to $100000.00 votes to be counted many of them from overseas. exactly 100000 it's been really hard to predict what's happening because there have been over the course of 2 days sometimes an hour will pass and we'll get a 20000 vote dump and then sometimes like now it doesn't seem to move except for by a couple of 100 but as you mentioned they still have just over 100102000 we believe votes left to count those are melon ballots and then they'll look to the provisional ballots and i know a super confusing samaritan elections tend to do that the provisional ballots are basically people showed up at the polls they didn't have their id or they'd asked

for a melon ballot and they didn't bring it in turn it into this because there are systems in place to make sure that they don't double up their votes and so basically they're given a ballot said ok this might matter we'll count it later. then what election fissions do is they go through and they figure out why did this person cast to make sure that they didn't send in their mail and ballot mail in ballot and then cast a ballot in person and they go through and they check it and then they count those those could take days and days to come in what joe biden is likely waiting for is someone to call the states so the states are never going to come out now and say ok we have a winner of the works they wait they have weeks weeks before they have to what they call certify the election what the biden campaign needs is either the associated press the new york times any one of the networks to say ok just one of these states we're confident we call it it's done because that's really where we're at we're just one state really pennsylvania though is the state if he gets it it's over that if he was president to which are doesn't get it it's also over so all eyes are

right here on pennsylvania all of my eyes are on this building behind me where they're actually doing the counting thinking about bringing in some coffee maybe helping him go along a little bit faster but for now it just doesn't seem like the numbers are moving very much and it's interesting because there's been a lot of criticism off that same counting process by president shrum and it seems that they have had enough at least the mayor has an ace been hitting back. he has a very very fairly answer as you know what i hear but i think we should take a step back and remember why are we here so many days it's after the election day is friday right why are we here or here because election officials went to the republican legislature and said hey we're going to get a lot of mail in ballots because there's a pandemic going on and we've never really seen this many mail in ballots or can we start processing those. before hand so we have them ready to count and the

legislature said no not until the very morning of election day so in states where you saw them say go ahead get ready we knew on election day and that's why the president able to say look there's fraud because the results of change so much it's not because there's fraud it's because they weren't allowed to count the ballots ballots but as you mentioned the mare the philadelphia headed. he said. as he put it. no i think what the president he said do is frankly put his big boy pants on he needs to acknowledge the fact that he lost and he needs to congratulate the winner just as jimmy carter did just as george h.w. bush did and frankly just as al gore did and stop this and let us move forward as a country the votes will continue to be counted until every valid mail in ballot absentee ballot and provisional ballot is counted so while some including the president continue to spew baseless claims of fraud claims for which his team has not produced one iota of evidence what we have seen here in philadelphia is

democracy pure and simple our founding fathers who could see the system just a 15 minute walk down the street i know would be proud. i have to say it does a much different atmosphere here today than there was just yesterday it's much more tense scene a much bigger police presence we've had the police helicopter hovering overhead on occasion there's a reason why they're worried just yesterday the police say that they got a tip from the f.b.i. that there were 2 men headed to this convention center heavily armed and that they could possibly have intentions to try and stop the vote in their car was found and there are local reporters saw q and on that conspiracy theory merchandise and it the men were found heavily armed not with the permits allowed to carry those sorts of gods in pennsylvania they were arrested charged with a felony we don't exactly know what their intention was but there's a real fear that the longer this goes on the more the rhetoric gets heated that this could actually result in the 'd fight so i think that's part of why you see

the mayor telling the president to cut it out at a call hanan that for us in philadelphia many thanks we can get more in the race in georgia and we can speak to. is live in miami and neighboring florida andy so the latest from georgia because i believe have announced that's going to be a recount that today. you know according to the secretary of state that is the case the last time we spoke i think biden's leave was about 1500 that's going up to about 4000 but it still within the north point 5 percent margin which need which means that there can be a recount so that looks likely to happen there are something like 8 or $9000.00 absentee and overseas ballots to be counted but at the moment we don't really know where they are there is an issue with those kinds of ballots they are ones that voters request but may not return nonetheless if you put all these figures together it still means the probability of

a recount in the state of georgia which essentially shouldn't have really been a play in this election it's a kind of unexpected outlier if you like because for the last few decades it's been a solidly republican state bill clinton back in 1992 who was the democratic presidential nominee one in that year but ever since then it's been solidly republican so a reflection i think of how the nation is changing in a couple senatorial races in the state of georgia also to keep an eye on their heading towards runoffs in january and they may really change how the senate makeup will be in the next 4 years because it's obviously very tight in the senate races as well so the counting is still going on but according to the secretary of state they will now do a recount and i think they have until november the 13th to do that they may do it sooner it may not matter of pennsylvania arizona nevada goes for joe biden i but certainly all eyes on georgia for the last few days at all can give us

a bit more detail on the recount i mean how long a process is something like that. i mean these poll workers have been slammed for the last few days obviously they've been working 24 hours i mean look we're dealing with a situation that many of these people have never dealt with before we're in the middle of a pandemic they've never had so many mail in ballots as they're having now some of them are arriving late particularly ones from overseas so it's a very complicated process but it is working. this is a republican run state there are no complaints about widespread fraud or any real problems not even too many glitches in the system so it's just how democracy is working in this state this is a year like no other for many many reasons but i think the bigger factor here is that georgia a state that's been republican for so long is now not just a purple state but may given what how the recount goes become a blue state and again speaking to us there from florida many thanks then finally

we can go to rob reynolds who is in los angeles has been monitoring very close the races from arizona and nevada arizona very interesting because. the race was called for biden from arizona by some media outlets but things seem to be changing there and biden's lead has been narrowing. yes it has and it's also interesting just following on what andy gallagher was saying a moment ago that arizona like georgia has been a red state a republican state for decades and the fact that biden is leading there and has been leading consistently for some time now is really remarkable and could again signal the shift of of one of these strongly republican states past decades into a purple or

a blue state well we shall see now in arizona joe biden is now ahead by $39000.00 votes there was a small disclosure of votes from the city of yuma arizona just a few 1000 and it turned out to be pretty much evenly split so it didn't change the equation very much biden has been around 40000 for quite some time now we're still expecting votes for america county that's phoenix and its suburbs and some satellite cities that has been good territory for biden so we'll we'll look to see when the officials in arizona release those those ballots the count is expected to extend all the way into the weekend before the very last and final votes are counted in this as we know now as everyone is probably been told a 1000 times arizona has 11 electoral votes you have to wonder what people around

the world think about the american election system probably a lot of the final mint now let's move on to nevada joe biden's margin there stands at 20000 trump has continued to chip away somewhat bit by bit at his lead in nevada nevada again is a. pretty solidly democratic state it has. it was won by hillary clinton and by barack obama but. there was a considerable amount of campaigning and fighting over the state's electoral votes there are approximately. $10000.00 more 'd ballots remaining to be tallied from las vegas from reno and the trump campaign has filed a lawsuit one of several it's filed around the country in an attempt to either force officials to stop counting what the white house claims are improperly cast

ballots or to otherwise disqualify some of those ballots the the better tourney general a gentleman named aaron ford who is apparently quite plain spoken called though the lawsuit garbage now. has 6 electoral votes and has gotten a lot of criticism and fun being poked at it for the slowness of its count one would think that a state dominated by casinos and gambling parlors would be able to count things pretty quickly but that hasn't been the case that officials are defending their their slow count saying they want to get things right speed is not the the essence but it certainly has provided a lot of fodder for twitter means of sleeping kittens and puppies and so forth and so on so we'll know more from nevada certainly within the coming hours many thanks

for that roll brunell's our correspondent speaking to us that from the los angeles . let's bring in to talk she's the founder and c.e.o. of full cycle strategies she joins us from washington d.c. many thanks for speaking to us on al-jazeera to talk a so as you've been hearing now we don't have a conclusive results yet but it does appear that biden is edging towards that victory what do you make of where we are today did you expect it to be this close well i certainly expect or vice president biden who have a clear victory i do believe that many woke up on wednesday morning quite a surprise that nearly dark horse you know america's decided to sign with the current president has been very clear that he stands beside racism and sexism as you know but what we have seen in all polls are counted is

that remark received revealing that the people of america are speaking very loud and clear that they want change that they want to 2 wars unity and that is what vice president biden is in a calmer here where and i think that's what you will see prevail as you say trump has done better than expected despite everything despite how we handle coronavirus and many other things mean one of the interesting facts which we're getting out of this election so far is that the the number of black voters that came out to vote for president donald trump has actually improved his standing in this election from 26 states why do you think that is. i think certainly there were a lot of experience at deceptive tactics it's no secret that the trucker ministration and his campaign it's hard to like me and particularly in ways that were deceptive and decide they were

a lie lies quite frankly that would that were put out there that permeated out and we also know that there was just a lot of a lot of what people would say shenanigans that were happening throughout this campaign and i think that had somewhat of an impact i think though it's important to know that when all votes are counted and all is said and done is the story is truly going to be black women and whether black women carry this election and this nation across the finish line it will be the story of black women in places like georgia stacey. and helen butler and black women all across the nation that really organize will inside the campaign on the outside of the campaign did the work let the strategy that promised at this moment. as we head towards the result whenever that may be. americans are divided they are more divided than ever before by didn't already we've been hearing from him trying to unite people trying

to sound presidential but he's got a challenging task on hand bringing people together what can he do specifically to to bring the 2 sides together to prevent violence on the streets and so on. nagen the 1st thing that vice president biden will do is speak to all of america that is what he has done with this campaign that is what i believe he will continue to do he will speak to all of america he understands that he will be the president of the united states of america quite frankly president trump we have not he's not move forward in that manner and i believe that by president biden will show a very stark contrast in the way that he leads i think also that vice president biden will speak begin to are now saying he is going to actually start to heal our country he will make so much that has gone wrong in this country that will start with dealing with the pen gimmick that we're dealing with the economy that has been

shattered and also racial healing that we need in this country that donald trump has just really stoked hate and rhetoric and i know that vice president biden and senator conrad hears will do the work to unify us and really deal with all that is really hurting america and that is where i believe america put their hope and their their votes on election day and even before them with early polls and mail in ballots the democrats no doubt will be disappointed that they didn't have a more decisive victory what lessons can be learned. from this election when i think the lesson is that we have to focus on the base of the party we had to continue to trust black women understand that we indeed win with black women and we saw the importance of having senator conrad harris on his ticket what it meant i think it's also important to note the strong leadership of black women up and down

the ballot because also a lesson is in you know nash eyeing away from key.