welcome to bbc news — i'm james reynolds. our top stories: donald trump again complains of electoral fraud in tuesday's presidential poll. he repeated his assertion, without evidence, that he won the vote. if you count the legal votes, i easily win. if you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us. joe biden insists the process is working properly and that every vote will be given the respect it deserves. each ballot must be counted. we have no doubt that, when in the count is finished, senator harris and i will be declared the winners. the counting continues in some of the key battleground states — georgia, arizona, nevada and pennsylvania are among those still to declare.

hello and welcome. donald trump has again complained of electoral fraud in tuesday's presidential poll, as his lead in two key states, georgia and pennsylvania, continues to shrink as postal votes are counted. at a news conference at the white house he said the system was corrupt but offered no evidence to back up his claims. if you count the legal votes, i easily win. if you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us. if you count the votes that came in late — we're looking at them very strongly — but a lot of votes came in late. i have already decisively won many critical states, including massive victories in florida,

iowa, indiana, ohio, to name just a few. we won these and many other victories despite historic election interference from big media, big money and big tech. as everyone saw, we won by historic numbers, and the pollster got it knowingly wrong. they go it knowingly wrong. we had polls that were so ridiculous — and everybody knew it at the time — there was no blue wave that they predicted. president trump's claims there made at the white house. let's speak to the bbc‘s north america correspondent peter bowes. take us through your check of the president's claims. well, the president's claims. well, the president's claims. well, the president is making these claims without providing any evidence. he is complaining about voter fraud, complaining about voter fraud, complaining about illegal votes being counted that those claims simply haven't been substantiated. he is threatening to go to the courts and has in some cases. he was

successful in one case with the judge siding with the president in pennsylvania to get drum campaign observers setting closer to the people counting the ballots in a particular state. he has also complained elsewhere about ballot papers being sent to people who are deceased, who are no longer with us, to people who have moved out of the states in the case of nevada. all of these claims have to be substantiated and for this to go the course in terms of the legal system here, through the lower courts and then potentially to the supreme court, detailed evidence has to be provided and we simply haven't seen that yet. listening to the president, have one point, he was saying stop the vote in some states where he was ahead but in other states, count the votes. it is quite hard to work out the logic of that strategy ona out the logic of that strategy on a first reading. is anything more behind that? well, it is a confusing message certainly and if that is the kind of befuddled messaging that prevails and it does eventually

go to the supreme court, a lot of legal scholars here are saying it is going to be a very difficult argument to win when as you say, he is in one place arguing that the counting of votes continues and quite the opposite elsewhere. clearly, the logic is as far as the trump campaign and is concerned is that he wants to continue counting in places he thinks he is going to win and perhaps stop the counting in places where he thinks he might not be successful. but again, to build a legal argument around that, perhaps the legal arguments applying to different states where different things are happening and making a solid case out of that is going to ta ke case out of that is going to take a lot of lawyers i think to make sense of that. are republicans lining up behind him? well, that is the interesting thing, there has been a sense in the trump camp from reporting, certainly from washington, that there is some anger perhaps leading republicans around the country,

leading figures in congress haven't necessarily been lining up haven't necessarily been lining up to back the president. certainly, his comments, the first comments he made very late on election night, it was quite striking that very few of his fellow senior republicans came out to support the president. and in the comments we heard just a few hours ago, we heard just a few hours ago, we haven't had a raft of support of people coming out to say that yes, we agree with the president. the estate of georgia is fascinating. this is a republican state with a republican governor and legislature. this is one of those states where at the moment if you look at the votes coming in, it is absolutely neck and neck between president trump andjoe neck and neck between president trump and joe biden. so it will be fascinating to see ifjoe biden eventually is the winner in that state or if he is at least projected to be the winner. what arguments come from the trump camp to perhaps deflect that and argue that some of those votes were fraudulent. peter bowes, thank you so much.

joe biden also addressed the media on thursday evening. he said he was confident that he would win — but called for patience. we continue to feel, the senator and i, we continue to feel very good about where things stand. we have no doubt that, when the count is finished, senator harris and i would be declared the winners. so i ask everyone to stay calm, all the people to stay calm. the process is working, the count is being completed and we will know very soon so thank you all for your patience but we have to count the votes. god bless you all and may god protect our troops. thank you. our correspondent barbara plett—usher is in delaware atjoe biden‘s hq. barbara, looking at that statement, he didn't declare victory or say anything like that but he was already acting, what would you call it, pre— presidential? what is his strategy? well, he is

presenting a stark contrast to president trump and also responding to what he sees as a tax on democracy. he is reassuring americans that the voting system can be trusted —— attacks, and that it is voters who choose the president and not anyone else. he is also reassuring his supporters that he believes he is on a path to victory and when all those votes are counted, he will be president. and i think he is also building momentum to declare victory when and if the news organisations call states in his favour and declare mathematically that he is president—elect. that he will declare it to be so and polly started to act like one. so that does happen, his advisers don't believe that president trump would concede. are the campaign team and biden supporters nervous or is this now for them a steady climb to victory, as they would see it? well, i spoke to some

supporters on the night of the election when they had a bit of a drive in raleigh here and they were hopeful but also nervous at that point. i think now, especially in the campaign, they are pretty confident, even as president trump was speaking, i think they had their eyes glued to they had their eyes glued to the figures during that time, watching mr biden again on mr trump in vote counting in places like georgia and pennsylvania. and they are actively preparing to hold an event here when they believe, they believe it will be when but let's say if mr biden is declared a winner in those states. now that doesn't look like it will happen tonight but we have seen them making preparations, tinkering with the sound system and with the light show flashing red white and blue. they think they are hoping to put that into action within the next 2a hours. hoping to put that into action within the next 24 hours. thank you barbara. our correspondent james clayton is in las vegas, nervada, he explains how close we are to a result there.

it is so close, it is completely on a knife edge. it is far too close to call, they're only about 10,000 votes between joe they're only about 10,000 votes betweenjoe biden they're only about 10,000 votes between joe biden and they're only about 10,000 votes betweenjoe biden and donald trump. if you want to know who is going to win this election, you need to come to place, the clark county election centre, where the vast majority of those who haven't been counted are being counted. this is where 70% or more or all of the nevada residents left. with the cou nty nevada residents left. with the county that contains las vegas and there are lots of votes still, about 190,000 that we don't know about. we don't know which way they have been cast. we believe we are going to get an date at about 10am pacific time tomorrow. that is about 6pm gmt. that may only be on about 50,000 votes. so it may well be the case that when it

comes to knowing how this state has gone, we won't know that much more and actually, the registry he has said that it may be saturday, sunday, even next week before we get a result here. and of course, it is possible that we don't get a result for the us presidential election until we get a decision here. a republican strategist and federal court legislator joins us how federal court legislator joins us now live from sam diego. that to you. the republican governor of maryland, larry hogan, has tweeted that there is no defence for the president's comments tonight undermining our democratic process. do you agree?” undermining our democratic process. do you agree? i do not. that is a very broad statement and there are a lot of issues underneath that umbrella. many of the legal challenges that the trump administration and campaign is raising in such states as georgia, wisconsin,

pennsylvania, michigan, nevada, arizona, the pivotal states he just talked about in your segment here are righteous challenges to the process regarding having proper observers in the polling stations and having a bipartisan look at theirs. so the umbrella comments i believe is misplaced. the litigation that has been started is well—placed and of course, some of the lower courts have made decisions already. including georgia, where a legal challenge was dismissed, a judge dismissed a lawsuit that accused them of mishap two mishandling absentee ballots two ballots, dismissed. you could say the same thing about pennsylvania and georgia. looking but if i'm a layer of the onion, georgia dismissed that without any comment. the judge didn't analyse any of the legal arguments, it was just a moot court adjustment there and the decision was not a live issue and denied it without comment. similar to pennsylvania, nevada and

arizona where both sides reached an agreement and therefore the courts found those were moot issues. a viewer might shouting at me to shout at you, where is the fraud and? the fraud is in the inability to have observers actually witness and observe the polling stations which are the polling stations which are the tallies of the accounts of the tallies of the accounts of the boats there. by law in each one of the states in our union, there is a requirement that a bipartisan group is allowed to actually watch the tallying of the votes. that has been specifically denied in these states. cbs, our sister station, there are literally dozens station, there are literally d oze ns of station, there are literally dozens of republican observers in philadelphia absentee ballots are being counted. it is being live streamed and they are welcoming all qualified observers, as is all tasmania counties. that's now, you're exactly right. the chronology matters. you're exactly right in pointing that out and the chronology comes after these lawsuits were raised, after there were agreements by both sides in front of the court and after the court found those issues to be moot because

precisely of the agreements that came arise because what was observed. watching the president statement, i'm trying to understand why he said in the same breath, biden catching up the same breath, biden catching up to him pennsylvania is potentially fraudulent but him catching up to arizona is fine? excellent question. a lot of people are thinking that. these are different issues. the issue raised in pennsylvania in the courts there is the inability for bipartisan poll observers which wejust for bipartisan poll observers which we just talked about has been established. in arizona however. that is a finished issue than. so why is it is now still a problem? well, because what we talk about in pennsylvania over and above the state court and district court's decision that you're referencing is the circuit court decision recently about three weeks ago which gives the additional three days in which to count the votes. this is an issue that is unsettled by the higher courts and the supreme court and this is an issue that we will see approach the united

states supreme court. there are different issues in different venues. different issues in different venues. as you know butjust different issues in different venues. as you know but just to inform our viewers, just because you approach this is cream court does not mean the supreme court will accept the case. if the president is talking about a conspiracy against him, isn't it a conspiracy of 72 million american voters also who voted freely for his opponent and who outnumbered his own voters? that may be one way to look at it. that is called an election. the conspiratorial allegation is something that he has not really said but the allegation of. that was the strong, strong implication of that statement by the white house which has been condemned by a republican governor and has been met by silence from most senior republican officials in the country. that's right and of course, that is what interpretation but those words have not come out of his mouth. you talk about free votes, free voting means the votes are counted accurately and are actually honoured. free voting does not mean for dumps of

100,000 votes. there is no evidence of dumps or votes being found. these are votes that are being processed. the use of dump is a very emotive word. there are videos documenting these dumps at 4am and that is the issue that we will see when there are offers of proof before district courts and circuit courts. that fight is not over and that is a factual decision forjudges to make. one, thank you so much returning joining us here on bbc news. what a pleasure, thank you. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: much more coverage as the us and the world waits for the results of tuesday's presidential election. the israeli prime minister, yitzhak rabin, the architect of the middle east peace process, has been assassinated. a 27—year—old jewish man has been arrested, and an extremist jewish organisation has claimed responsibility for the killing.

at polling booths throughout the country, they voted on a historic day for australia. as the results came in, it was clear — the monarchy would survive. of the american hostages, there was no sign. they are being held somewhere inside the compound, and student leaders have threatened that, should the americans attempt to rescue, they will all die. this mission has surpassed all expectations. voyager one is now the most distant man—made object anywhere in the universe, and itjust seems to keep on going. tonight, we prove once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but the enduring power of our ideals. this is bbc news. the latest headlines: in only his second public appearance since tuesday's presidential election, donald trump has again insisted that he was the winner, repeating unsubstantiated

claims of voterfraud. joe biden has appealed for calm, and says he expects that when all the votes are counted he will have won. there are a lot of battleground states to catch up with. let's take a closer look at what each candidate needs to do to get into the white house. here's paul hawkins. yes, this is our electoral map of the united states. those that are in red here are the states that are projected to go for donald trump. the ones in blue are projected to go for joe biden but the ones we are interested in at the moment are the grey ones. these ones are still in play, nevada, arizona, pennsylvania, north carolina, georgia and down here alaska. we will ignore alaska at the moment, sorry, alaska. it is worth three electoral college

votes a nd worth three electoral college votes and is almost certain to go for donald trump. at the moment he is stuck on 214. that is why he is not happy. he needs 56 electoral college votes to retain the presidency. his path to the white house is much narrower than joe biden's. he has three clear roots because he only needs 17 electoral college votes —— routes. let's go through those routes. let's go through those routes now. here is the first one. in nevada and arizona he is ahead at the moment as they accounting. if he were to win arizona and nevada, ignore the other states, he is up to the magic number of the other route, i should say, that he could win to take the presidency is if he were to ta ke presidency is if he were to take georgia. georgia at the moment is very, very close. donald trump was in the lead but that has dwindled away. joe biden is really close to overtaking him there. if he we re overtaking him there. if he were to take georgia and either nevada or arizona, he gets to 280, easily over the line,

ignoring pennsylvania and north carolina. the other route for joe biden is very simply if he wins pennsylvania, in which case, if he wins pennsylvania... it has a mind of its own. if he wins pennsylvania, he is forecast... basically if he wins pennsylvania, this thing has a mind of its own, but if he wins pennsylvania he gets over the line easily and then he takes the presidency. but for donald trump, he has to win pennsylvania plus one of these other states if he is to retain the presidency. that is why so much of his campaign team have been focusing on that estate in the rustbelt and the counting thatis the rustbelt and the counting that is taking place there. we deliberately left the gremlins in. thank you for pushing through it. the bbc‘s michelle fleury is in philadelphia in pennsylvania, one of the states still to declare.

what we understand, the latest update we got from top election officials in this state, is that the majority of the ballots have now been counted but the race is still too close to call. donald trump has had a lead here in the keystone state, but it has narrowed even in the last few hours. it has shrunk. it was in some ways what people had been expecting. let me explain by what i mean by that. in—person votes tended to favour republicans. you may recall donald trump had urged his supporters to vote early. democrats, who tended to vote by mail, they‘ re accounting for about two—thirds of the postal votes going for biden. that's why you're seeing this late swing. they take longer to count. to reinforce the point we have been making, michelle, if the state is called forjoe biden, he is over that 270 number. so what almost everyone at home will be yelling at me to ask you is when, when, when? that is the million—dollar

question. and you know, earlier today there were about 100,000 postal votes left to count in this building. that is enough to put biden in the lead in pennsylvania. you're talking about what is going on inside there potentially deciding this race. but because it is so close, because as you say it does essentially getjoe biden to the magic number, officials here are being very cautious. i think you're going to see that both from the media not wanting to call things too early, but also as i say officials, given the significance of pennsylvania. the last big battleground state — those 20 electoral votes could decide the future direction of this country. what about any legal challenges from the president and his team? yeah, i mean, we've seen a number of the trump team actually out here earlier today.

pam bondi and corey lewandowski were here to tout one of the legal victories they've had. you may recall in that press conference that donald trump had, he talked about observers being blocked from seeing the votes counted. the judge here said that they could move closer, essentially. but then somewhere in the process the voting stopped in this building, as corey lewandowski and pam bondi and others tried to sort of go in and force their way in to observe. then we had the philadelphia board of election trying to appeal to pennsylvania's highest court. that matter is still outstanding, but for now the counting goes on and on. gabriel debenedetti is national correspondent with new york magazine and he has been following this election closely. he is in charlottesville, virginia. thank you so much. i wonder if you saw those two statements, the one by mr biden and the other by mrtrump, the one by mr biden and the other by mr trump, and how you might compare the two? well,

certainly they are hardly comparable at all. vice—president biden has essentially been saying he thinks he is on track to win. this is based on a very simple analysis of the vote, where you have president trump on the other hand essentially saying something is wrong here. it is not true, i haven't lost. but he is talking about all of this baseless lead. this is essentially a number of conspiracy theories that he is talking about a number of these estates. it seems abundantly clear, as we havejust estates. it seems abundantly clear, as we have just been hearing, that pennsylvania is trending very hard injoe biden's direction is more votes are counted, particularly in philadelphia, which has of course always been a big power centre for him. so you have two different realities that these two candidates are living in. it seems like joe two candidates are living in. it seems likejoe biden's reality is the one that is in fa ct reality is the one that is in fact all of our reality, where as you had president trump speaking from the white house earlier essentially saying they should stop account in some states, make sure the counter still going in other states. it is not clear at all now what

his path to the presidency, or toa his path to the presidency, or to a second term, i should say, is going to look like, other than he continues to promise vaguely litigation. we do not know what that litigation would look like. 0n election night he said we are going to take this to the supreme court. not com pletely to the supreme court. not completely clear what the path there would be. vice—president biden's team very confident. they seem to believe that they are going to get some kind of a nswer are going to get some kind of answer out of pennsylvania soon. it is really close right now but they think that they are going to build—up quite a large margin in areas like philadelphia. there are also some boats coming in from other cities in the state like pittsburgh, where they believe thatjoe biden over performed donald trump. in 1974, is impeachment reached its height, a delegation of republican senators went to president nixon to say the game is up, you have got to go. if the numbers get worse for president trump, do you envisage a similar delegation heading into the white house to give that same message? that is a very good question. i think a lot of republicans are probably asking themselves that right now. the short answer is no, not right

now and not any time soon. because a lot of these republicans have tied their entire electoral lives to president trump over the last few years. he has really remade the party in his image. at the same time, he is asking them to do something very difficult, which is stand with him to contest the results of an election in which actually quite a lot of republicans won further down the ballot, whether senate races or in house of representatives races. so you do have some sitting republicans who have essentially said no, this is no time to call fraud, we have to count legally cast ballots, of course, but let's let this play out. if this drags on, however, and it becomes clear that vice—president biden has legitimately won the presidency but president trump is not conceding, i would but president trump is not conceding, iwould not but president trump is not conceding, i would not be surprised to see some more republicans stand up. however, a lot of people have been asking republicans to do something like that for many yea rs something like that for many years now. thank you so much for joining years now. thank you so much forjoining us. thank you. accou nts

accounts —— the counts in those key states, pennsylvania, georgia and nevada, will go on. hello there. it looks like the weather should even out a bit more, i think, for friday. certainly compared with thursday, where we had the wind blowing over the pennines, bringing some sunshine in durham and temperatures reaching 18 degrees. whereas across southern parts of england, when that fog formed, it lingered into the afternoon in some places and temperatures only eight or nine celsius. now, it's quite chilly early in the morning across more southern areas of the uk. where we have the clearer skies, a pinch of frost. further north there is more cloud around. but where we have those clearer skies in england and wales, there's some mist and fog, particularly towards the west country and the south—east of wales in the morning. it'll lift fairly readily, mind you, as the breeze picks up and we get sunshine developing widely. and that cloud, quite low

cloud, moving northwards across scotland and northern ireland and some sunshine coming in here as well. the winds picking up in the south—west through the day. temperatures not quite as high as they were on thursday, notjust to the east of the pennines but also in the north—east of scotland. but over the weekend, we're going to find milder air gradually coming in from the south on a southerly breeze. and whilst it's dry for many, there could be a bit of rain around, especially on sunday. but we start the weekend this time with the colder air and the lower temperatures across more northern areas of the uk, with the clearer skies. that's going to lead to some fog, particularly across the vale of york and perhaps in the central belt. that could linger into the afternoon as well. otherwise, we get some sunshine in the north away from that fog. further south, through wales, the midlands, southern england, it could be quite grey and cloudy through the day. a bit of rain in the far south—west later. but temperatures are beginning to recover across southern areas. where we have the fog lingering further north, though, it will be quite chilly. second half of the weekend, we've got lowering pressure

to the south—west of the uk, southerly breeze. these weather fronts — pretty weak, mind you — are moving their way northwards. so it looks like there's a fair bit of cloud at least on sunday. there could be some patchy rain here and there, most of it i think running up through the irish sea towards northern ireland and later on into the south—west of scotland. many places are still going to be dry and those temperatures making double figures through the central belt of scotland, and again 16 degrees towards the south—east of england. those temperatures remain at those sort of levels really, i think, through monday and tuesday into next week. we've got some wetter weather on monday. but it should be dry but still fairly cloudy, i think, on tuesday.

this is bbc news, the headlines: donald trump has again complained of electoral fraud in tuesday's presidential poll, as his lead in two key states — georgia and pennsylvania, continues to shrink as postal votes are counted. at a news conference at the white house he repeated unsubstantiated claims of voterfraud. joe biden has insisted the vote counting process is working properly. he's called for calm and patience and said democracy was sometimes messy, but had no doubt he'd be declared the winner once counting was complete. he's 17 electoral votes short of securing the presidency. votes are still be counted in several key states including pennsylvania, georgia, nevada and arizona. counting has been delayed largely because of the huge volume of postal ballots most

of which are expected to be in favour of mr biden. now on bbc news — panorama. it's the social media sensation of lockdown, targeted at teenagers. i spend a lot of time doing the dancing. i would say i am addicted to tiktok. it says its mission is to inspire creativity and to bring joy. and though it clearly can, could tiktok also be putting some users at risk? if you're looking at a lot of kids dancing sexually and you interact with that, it will give you more kids dancing sexually. unfortunately, they know where children are hanging out, they know they can interact there with them. tonight on panorama, we investigate how the app can expose children to harm.