this is you have you special coverage 2020 the u.s. elections i'm little rock and i'm puzzled for the us tonight america decides. to break a can donald trump pull off another election miracle as he hopes for a repeat of 2016 well all the signs point to a win for challenger joe biden but we've been here before for us voters to find the polls and the pundits once again.

thanks so much for being here tonight for one of the most contentious consequential and closely watched u.s. elections in history that's right democrat joe biden is fighting to unseat republican president donald trump and the world has its eyes on america tonight and we'll be following every twist and turn with our team of correspondents and experts and i'll be keeping you up to date with all the results as they come in and this of course is an election played out with america in crisis mode the cold food pandemic is surging and there's a stark political divide and that's raising fears of unrest but turnout is set to shatter all records let's take a look now at deadline day for american voters. this is what us to mock crissy looks like today huge lines at many polling stations in one of the world's oldest and largest democracies from chile wisconsin in the north.

through the city that never sleeps. to tropical florida and the south voters seem to have shown up in massive numbers even during a pandemic indicating just how important today's vote is for them i voted for the greatest president in history donald j. strong trump is doing nothing for us so that he's going to have very thing more in the control than was. loved as intensely as he is loathed donald trump has become the biggest issue on the ballot and tonight americans and many around the world will be watching how you react to their results win or lose they get a better concession speech your acceptance speech. hopefully you will be only doing one of those 2 and you know. winning is easy losing is never easy enough for me

it's the. right oh joe biden is the man determined to turn tramp into the loser he's campaigned through much of election day promising to heal america's divisions of proverbs. oh i'd rather have a proud democrat through work ready i'm going to. go for those birds that are. both contenders have presented the battle for the white house as a struggle for the country's soul leaving many in the united states preparing more 1st storm than for an election party. all right let's take you now to our teams on the ground in the u.s. in this poll is in washington outside the white house and we'll be airing it from all over solid in joe biden's home state of delaware in just a moment but in this one to go to you election day on like any other in the midst of a global pandemic set the scene for us what have you been hearing from voters there

. right well i mean the pandemic is really present everywhere that is true and we mustn't forget that how many thousands of americans already have died and this is somewhat overshadowing this whole day and election night what did we hear from the people here on the ground we talked to both sides and both sides are actually pretty convinced that they will make it to be talked to some trump supporters who won't for him because he's anti-abortion we talked to others they are very much in agreement with his immigration policies they think you should finish the wall because they think no more so-called illegal immigrants should end to this country than on the other side we talked to young biden and come a long hair is so poor they are all for fighting climate change and supporting human rights so both sides are here and it was

a very joyful atmosphere you're on but slowly the mood is changing and i think the happy hours are over today the happy hours are over indeed because polls have just closed in about i have a dozen more states what's next what can we expect. but people are still in life so it is far too early to call anything i mean we should. we will guide our watches of yours through every single step but at this very moment we have to wait and see because again it looks come down possibly to very very little margin so it's far too early to give any solid predictions all right ines paul thank you so much will of course be checking in with you throughout the evening i want to go now to oversell it in joe biden's home state of a delaware all over are people fired up among by and supporters where you are and are they confident that their candidate joe biden will oust the incumbent.

well they certainly are but there's also this big sense of nervousness not only among biden supporters among every will reach spoken to today me and our team here in wilmington delaware and that is because it's really that that feeling that this election is crucial that this election is what many people told us the most important election all of their lives and we are looking at a polarized nation even more so we've been saying that 4 years ago already when we covered the election of donald trump well now the united states are even more polarized and really drifting apart on both sides of the political aisle and therefore a lot of people fear the outcome of this election here tonight and all of this of course amid what could be a record turnout in modern times in memory even with huge interest this election day what lies ahead all over. yeah that's right some more than 100000000 voters took to the polls even before today in early voting and that was never that

has never been the case of course we are looking at penn demick situation that needed some special solutions of course for election day among them was early voting but then of course also mail in ballots with all the debate whether or not these mail in the ballots are prone to fraud or not and that's the case donald trump made here and that also gives you a little ideal for lies ahead so if we get a clear decisive result tonight then things might move on very quickly but that it's very unlikely because of these mail in ballots that have to be counted there are different rules in place depending on the 50 states every state has different rules and different legislation when it comes to counting those ballots so that is basically key to looking out what's going to happen within the next days we going to get a clear result tonight or not and if not then the president has also already announced that he might not accept the outcome of the election and specifically looking at

the mail in ballots so hard we're just going to have to be patient and wait for. the votes to be counted all over south reporting from delaware talk to you in a bit let's bring it back to berlin now and we've got a great set of guests here that i'm going to be leaning on this evening i'm joined by a and cherry a film maker who worked on a barak obama's campaign in 2004 bernie sanders in 2016 and for the viewers. you're already familiar with the william glue croft he is part of our u.s. election team gentlemen welcome great to have you on board well you want to give you the 1st word biden versus trump this is where we're at i mean this is one of the most closely watched elections in memory what's at stake here exactly i mean what's at stake is which kind of democracy what kind of country do american voters want to have as we just heard from oliver we have a sitting president who says he doesn't maybe not going to trust the numbers he's

not going to concede if he looks like he's defeated he might he might find ways around that he might be you know launching legal challenges. where in the midst of a pen demick that has not gone very well and this country is facing really a very stark choice you know america american elections tend to be very aspirational regardless if they're republican or democrat candidates come out with a very aspirational very hopeful view of america and donald trump what's different about this this election in this campaign also in 2016 he's really the 1st president i can think of that one on a campaign of fear on a campaign of american carnage and a campaign of anger and violence of divisiveness not trying to bring people together actually not coming around the center of the american politics but actually moving further conservative that it's completely flipped the logic of elections on a head and that's what we're facing now that kind of a raw angry america versus

a more aspirational american which one voters want is where we're going to find us . elves' tonight tomorrow and weeks to come aren't you were part of very aspirational a campaign that of barack obama so i mean. william touched upon it alluded to it that there is a chance of maybe violence after this election is this is that a real possibility you think i think it is and i think kind of the conventional ways we think about it like some sort of mass uprising is probably not on the table but i think as the days start to go on and there's recounts and little counties in pennsylvania you may find folks who happen to have access to firearms and get outside and things get escalated and something happens i think a lot of little incidences like this could pop up and it's a very scary proposition all right we're going to leave it there for just a 2nd want to send you over now to apollo who will be bringing us all the latest results pablo.

well this is more like an election deadline than an election day and voters have been casting their ballots for weeks smashing records for early voting along the way and i tonight will get to know most of the results but not all i'm going to stressed out as the tallies come in now remember that both candidates are trying to reach that number there 270 i'm are already seeing some votes come in 3 there for joe biden and 8 for donald trump and of course we can't forget that some states get more votes than others in the college and electorate and this is just a representation of just how important each state is and you can see there on the map that california the biggest state it gets 55 votes no texas is another big prize and florida with its 29 votes may well decide this race now we'll be tracking the state by state results with polling data from the associated press and we already have several states that have closed their polls indiana there in the

midwest and kentucky kentucky is already looking red at the moment and up there in the northeast we're seeing vermont as well 2 states which tend to vote respectively democrat in vermont and tend to go more for republican leaning state there in kentucky and you know with 8 college electoral votes there in kentucky it's good safe 8 votes for president trump and the result could be 90 percent complete tonight indiana has 11 votes it's also the home of vice president mike pence of keep your eye on to georgia is another one down here in the southeast just above florida of course that's now become a swing state and going into this election there was a tie between president trump and joe biden for ginia as well over there just to the east of kentucky that is also a big $113.00 votes it's considered a swing state but actually the republicans haven't won that in 16 years and says carolina a pretty solid republican state and also we're going to be keeping a ride and they're on florida and in the next 30 minutes. so it will be seen that

north carolina ohio and west virginia north carolina and ohio are swing states they're going to be closing their polls very soon so we've got to keep our eye on those and to see which way they're swinging tonight back over to our panel all right thank you so much apollo a room when it come to you now what do you looking out for what will be the indicator for you in terms of how this evening will unfold and it's exactly happening now so it's exciting i think we're seeing glimmers of how the sun belt is going to go all the way from florida georgia even arizona when we see the 1st things come out in north carolina and in florida and in georgia but especially north carolina where they will have counted the early vote already and where we will have a much better look i think other things we'll see in the rust belt will tell us if there are the shied from voters if they are coming out and already we have some interesting tea leaves from kentucky in that we are seeing more folks break for mcgrath then for trump showing that there are people splitting their tickets which

is a rarer and rarer thing in american politics interesting out william is there a particular state that you are specifically intrigued by and that will give you an idea hint of where the country is headed i mean the states that obama won in 2012 that trump one of the 16 that democrats traditional rely on to win that being wisconsin michigan pennsylvania especially wisconsin michigan which are known as these kind of like old school working class blue collar democratic labor kind of states you know a lot of former industry there been hurting hard by you know outsourcing to china which is what was very resonant from trump with a lot of his rhetoric in 2016 and those 3 states pennsylvania wisconsin michigan and cameras have enough that was 80000 votes less than 80000 votes that's what the side of the election 2016 and that's why you know if you look at all the polling data we could see you know how far by then is ahead consistently 7 to 10 points nationally up in all the in all the swing states but you know. the simplest way to

look at the challenge to donald trump is you know he lost the popular vote nationally by 3 by almost by 2 points in 2016 you have those voters in those states also big states with big electoral votes and this election is biden so we discuss them with wisconsin michigan pennsylvania and florida of course is always every election the big surprise florida florida florida. all right so it doesn't end. up and joe biden have vastly different backgrounds and offers starkly different visions let's take a closer look now at the choice facing american voters. one has dedicated his life to public service and the other dedicated his 2 winning. 2 men with contrast in styles. and competing visions of the future. we choose hope over fear unity over division science over friction and yes truth

over a lie this election is a choice between a trump super recovery which we're in right now or a by a depression. joseph biden story is one of triumph and tragedy of overcoming a childhood stutter to reach the u.s. senate just 30 years ago only to lose his wife and daughter in a car accident. in 2015 biden was again left. when his son beau died of brain cancer. i found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose. donald trump inherited a new york real estate empire and turned the need into a brand. his life of waiting to parties and my with some of the we're talk of the tongue. followed him everywhere and so too did bankruptcies.

but it was a hit t.v. show the apprentice that revestive for. the prestigious helped turn trump from hapless new york businessman to longshot presidential hopefuls. wilder to a vast city's a white man in their seventy's the similarities end. for decades biden rode the train to work. while crumb enjoys the croppings of wealth. biden spent his career shaping his foreign policy beliefs. and forging friendships a broad. trump peddled conspiracies tonight for the 1st time our president has finally released a birth certificate and run for office on a nationalist take it for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states so help me god

to bring your life to promising isolationism. it's going to be only america 1st which saw him embrace dictators and foods while pushing need to allies around the tour deal after deal. i am announcing today the united states will withdraw from the iran nuclear deal from the paris. climate a court. staged on treaties with russia. so we're going to terminate a brit we're going to call that he's gone where few presidents have he was impeached and he repeatedly cozied up to violent white supremacists. very fine people on both sides. for biden america 1st means america alone

he's on a mission to rewind to trump years and he's hoping his folksy appeal will win over swing voters. we are in the battle for the soul of this nation. though he too is no stranger to fighting talk doing this big you know what you're wrong. when you stick to the script his pitches the after 4 years of chaos on hundreds of thousands of crudely $1000.00 day he is uniquely placed to mend the country battle for the soul of us that's the job of a president to hear. the trump campaign by contrast has been lights on unity and heavy on fear and misinformation for the president this is about coming fast at any costs. reject left wing fascism vote for american freedom vote for america 1st vote for make america great again. both candidates have cost themselves as america's salvation but the truth is in

this high stakes bottle the result will reverberate well beyond her borders. and i want to go now to return if you were part of the 2008 obama campaign as you know very well biden ran for president or lost to obama obama surprised everyone by picking biden as his vice president what did he see in him and were you able to glean during your time there what his personality is i mean is he the way he appears is that the joe biden this is the thing that unites both those men is that they are the only people you will meet who are exactly the same on and off camera just 100 percent just course a rare thing in politics but you're right to point out that it was surprising and they were sort of originally an odd couple i think now we think of them as this walking buddy cop movie you know because they had such a successful presidency together but no it was they were at opposite ends of the

party you saw them taking different views on the iraq war and even though biden was sort of always a crowd fav. brit he wasn't getting any sort of traction because he didn't have a lot of the policies that people were looking for and so i that's what i think he jelled so well with obama because he brought who he is which is an authentic and empathetic soul into a situation like the obama white house and kind of provided what was a more cerebral environment with that kind of energy and so i think they complement each other in a lot of ways now of course i mean his famous or infamous for his his gaffes his biden bombs so to speak i mean it sometimes i wonder are they strategic. i mean or is he just really prone to gases that make him also more sympathetic to voters i think it does i think he's gaffe prone and i think he's proof of being consistent because if you're making a lot of gaps all the time it kind of insulates you against each one being

dissected and just becomes joe being joe now william is this an election is this election rather a referendum on trump every other than a case for biden and could this hurt biden because nobody is for him he's rather the anti trump candidate there are a surprising number of democrats who really do like joe biden it's not just i hate donald trump i vote for any while vote for a shoe box over donald trump there are plenty of people that there is enthusiasm for joe biden let's not forget south carolina right south carolina put him brought him back from the dead so to speak and democrats fell in line behind him you know biden is and i should be careful about this because things went very wrong for democrats as the same but he is in a way hillary clinton now where he is that a stablish woman known variable known quantity people know who he is they're familiar with who he is he doesn't threaten he doesn't seem threatening like some other further to the left democratic candidates to more centrist or even conservative americans especially older americans you know can identify with him so

he really is someone who people can feel comfortable message democrats want to definitely not taking any risk. this election as a risk as much of a risk free choice as possible i think what democrats are vying for here to disagree with you here and as well you know i so also to jump in here because you know we've seen the progressive flank of the democratic party really rise up this time around so it seems kind of a curious choice to have joe biden run because he isn't the woke asst hipness guy in town and especially for this moment in time is he the right candidate. i mean whether or not he's the right candidate will know in their few hours or a few days but i think you bring up a very good point and which is that joe biden was an almost anyone's 1st choice unlike hillary clinton in 2016 and it wasn't until barack obama even seemed to sort of try out a couple other candidates that he ended up settling on joe biden which is of course something that donald trump loves to bring up at his rallies yeah i mean you bring

up a good point in that democrats are taking a gamble that they need more centrist older establishment consumer conservative democrats more than they need the more of more you know enthusiastic energetic the ones taking to the streets for black lives matter protests that's the gamble democrats are taking we need a safe reliable establishment democrat that people you know lifelong democrats independents maybe even some republicans who 1015 years ago would have been happy to see a biden mccain ticket in that dream dream centrist picture that many people have a lifetime ago that's the gamble they're taking and as we're going to find out tonight if it's enough historically speaking young people don't vote as much as older people older people are more reliable voters so this may be the right choice for democrats but as i run points out world will know that soon enough we'll find out indeed and i believe we can go to you know in washington d.c. is that correct. rather we're going to we're going to go in

a moment 1st going to go to delaware to joe biden's home state all over south it is standing by our great to see you how do you think tonight is shaping up for democrats so far is there an air of confidence where you are. well the polls leading into this election day were slightly in favor of the democrats as we know but those are only polls we know how things went down in 2016 when hillary clinton was in the lead the democrats hold up and i'm pretty confident to a certain extent that this will not repeat because the numbers are different but this year is just a very different election we're in the middle of a global pandemic that has hit the united states particularly hard the whole election looks very different and as you know we have mail in ballots under way and many of them have not arrived yet and in some states they can arrive and will be accepted throughout the next days even states that have not even counting count in started to count those ballots like pennsylvania

a key battleground state so it is very much too early to talk about any of the confidence here because simply there are many question marks still around especially when it comes to the mail in ballots that we might see in the next days the results of those now we understand that we may have a result from florida in the next couple of hours the biden team surely would like to back that. certainly and also the trump team i mean florida is one of the crucial battleground states year this year there's a big number of electoral college delegates up for grabs and you know especially for a president trump there are certain groups that. like him there if you look at south florida the cubans the venezuelans president trump really tried to create this narrative of socialism trying to say that when joe biden wins this election

than the united states would be turned into a socialist country that resonates very well with these minorities there that fled from situations like that the overall situation in the state of florida is a toss up according to latest polls and it's a state that donald trump really has 6 to win otherwise his path to victory will be very narrow and i thank you so much all over ines set hole in washington and next you know as these next few hours will be decisive for president donald trump. most definitely leyla and he's just here behind me in the white house he was planning to hold a party for 400 people now it's down to 250 people we shall see if he has something to celebrate but we all have to keep in mind if he loses these elections he actually might face some legal challenges because as a president you are protected as many country leaders all around the world but if

he is losing this election we shall see what happens with him in that regard right in terms of stamina i mean he's really proven himself dollar trump holding rally after rally after rally in the final days of the campaign how tight is this race now. well it could be very very tight it's really hard to say because you know it depends on so many different outcomes of different states but by the end of the day it can be very tight we have to remember in 2000 it came down to 500 votes and in florida. which held to bush win in 2004 years ago the president on the only won the white toes because of 45000 votes in pennsylvania so this is a huge country whose millions of millions of eligible people voters but it can come

down to really a very very little margin and therefore both of them not only president trump also joe biden and both wise presidents or vice president candidate in the wise president they also come pain down to the very last minute because it can be a really super close call and that's what makes it so fascinating in this poll thank you so much and i'm going to hand you over now to pablo who has similar software for. that's right we actually have some results already and our results services already cold 2 states kentucky for president trump and vermont for joe biden as we take a look at florida here where of course 29 electoral votes are up for grabs 8 so very important state and florida let's not forget has partially finished voting it's got another 30 minutes or so until the entire state has finished nearly 50

percent of the votes in and joe biden has a narrow lead over donald trump but let's not jump to any conclusions because florida is a state which always goes down to the wire of course and as i said there's already 2 results in kentucky and vermont 2 states which are no shock in some ways we can see them there kentucky gone to the republicans vermont up there in the northeast gun to joe biden as i said that we're going to be taking a look as well as georgia south carolina and virginia particular virginia and georgia 2 other big states there that we've got to keep our eyes on georgia. generally voted for republicans but it has essentially turned into a swing state going into this election and also we are going to be seeing in the next few minutes 3 states that are going to be closing their polls very soon that's north carolina ohio and indiana as well joe biden here and donald trump we can

see the votes here joe biden has already taken those 34 vermont and president trump ace for kentucky so that's what i've got so far for him back over to you. thank you so much pablo well donald trump and joe biden over vastly different visions for america's future don't use max hoffman we'll be taking a closer look now with some special guests. thanks layla and welcome everybody to our special news talk where bringing you the global perspective on the u.s. elections in the segment it's all about the conflict between trump and biden that was unlike anything we've seen in the past some say unpresidential maybe even democratic are we witnessing that the kind of democracy as we know it and we have some very interesting guests to discuss these question we have charlie climber with us today she's an army veteran writer and transgender activist she says when

talking about trump this coward is unfit for his office and the power it holds he needs to go we have den eberhard he's a best selling author c.e.o. of the largest privately owned oilfield services company in the united states and a major donor of the republican party and he says this kind of growth wouldn't be possible without the actions of the trump administration to reopen our country it also should prove that what trump did was the right thing to do despite media pundits swearing otherwise and finally we have julia bryan international chair of democrats abroad she told us after the last election my phone started ringing and ringing some people were calling just a cry others told me they would have voted for trump if they had known how successful he would be and that he posed

a real threat so before we start i want you all to listen to an exchange from the 1st presidential debate i'm sure you're familiar with it but it's a great reminder of what we're talking about here. is the rational left would usually doesn't raise and who is doing your list you know there's really no you know right gentlemen is i think this is a tactical and. then i would like to talk with you charlie climber 1st here what we just heard this style is this detrimental to democracy or does it not matter it is absolutely detriments all to our democracy it's so good to be here with you tonight max and then i want to point out you know for so many of us this is not about being a democrat or republican this is about the soul of our country and the fact that we have someone at the head of our government who is set fastly and urgently. undermining all of our institutions and really kind of undermining confidence in

our government to do the right thing and it's very scary and that's the kind of leadership we see on display right now as someone who is incredibly irresponsible with his hands on the will but we need new leadership i was involved in just a quick question here in just just talking about the style you know the insults and also what joe biden has said in this thing is this in itself a problem would you say. yes absolutely yes i mean this is not this is not the way that responsible good civic discourse should be done in this country but you know for we've seen this for we're 5 years now ever since he launches campaign in 2016 it has been year after year of nothing but insulting his opponents. an ad hominem attacks and really insulting everyone from military veterans who have served service members who have been killed in action to ordinary americans who are just trying to live and get by in

a country that i think has forgotten about them that this government that never hard your republican supporter do you feel comfortable with the style that donald trump puts on display. generally yes i think it's timeless is combative and certainly a lot of broadway creation in pop i think that ultimately you know trump trump one last time i think he's going to win tonight and he delivers on what he promised and you know the style of combativeness is it is rough and it's a little bit a typical from what you would expect but he's delivered he's deliveries uls he's proven himself days a conservative and he's proven he can run you know a very large economy a very large farm all city and run the federal government and the fact that mater and does it please everyone no but does it accomplish things does it move the policy you know down down the field yes it does and i think that his supporters you know are willing to overlook some of the stylistic issues for the fact that here's

a business leader that is not you know perfectly steve in the ways of washington but don't you feel like this style also might cost him the election tonight. well toss what i think there's an awful lot of things that could cost them the election but i also think if you look at biden bites. you know growing pot and throwing rocks at what is your specific proposal you specifically only on a covert crisis i think are are just empty platitudes that aren't really concrete proposals and a lot of his other also your ideas and you know 40 something years in government to do he had 8 years of vice president and he didn't do this and we're going to get to that later we're going to get to that later then eberhard i would like to put one more question here to julia bryan about this part here it seems like there are very staunch supporters of donald trump especially it's certain in the united states and in europe his approval ratings are much much lower and nobody basically nobody in western europe would vote for donald trump what are your opinions missing about the

u.s. president what do they not understand about him that americans understand apparently at least some of them. that's a really good question i don't think they have the answer for because as an american abroad most americans abroad do not support donald trump in our voter to we have 75 percent of the people who sign up and are requesting about this year they're democrats 2.9 percent are registering as republicans so the support for trump abroad is very very minimal and i think that it's it shows that we respect discourse we respect policies we respect leadership that's helping people and not just a small mafioso class of folks who donald trump is trying to go for of course we're not only talking about a change in tone and language but also in respect towards democratic institutions and results listen to this sound bite by president donald trump. stand back

and stand by but i'll tell you what i'll tell you what somebody has got to do something about anti fair and the left because this is not a right as we were i'm is old is a levy i direct this is the left and we have got whites of course this is a sound bite that was repeatedly aired in the last weeks it was a very important soundbite and it seems to tell us something about the respect of the incumbent u.s. president of the democratic institutions what does it do to democracy charlie clymer if you have a president that says you might not respect the results of an election it just goes to show what this this president thinks the wm merican people i mean we have a process by which voters choose our government every 4 years and every 4 years we have had a peaceful transfer of power republican a democrat a democrat a republican the fact that donald trump is the 1st person in modern history to refuse to commit to

a peaceful transfer of power really says it all about the respect he has for the voters and the respect he has for the democratic process which is none of this is a man who wants to stay in power just for the sake of staying in power not to serve the will of the american people and certainly not to preserve democracy and i think everyone in this hanover guard was a party clued in dan would have to admit that you know trump's callous remarks toward how the democratic process should be run in the election results he alan dated has been deeply concerning and should terrify a song and why don't you react to that right away that have been hard please. general i disagree that i also disagree with you know the panelists you know referring to it's a troubling. look trump trump is that is nature but so is biden by them all across remark you know it's wrong in terms what we do with government obvious problems like trump wants to you believe is the offical stop. and he just. he will be you know you see all those 5 he's likely to receive even

more and there's a huge group wells or trauma but i do that most of those. because of those. against our own eye on obvious to you know pull to or the neighborhood i think we're losing you somewhat right here i'm sure the connection will stabilize later a little more but maybe we have we have to have brian in the meantime reacting to that do you also feel like this is not a big deal that the u.s. president is might not be respecting the results as we just heard from dan and barbara. that is a huge deal. as as charlie mentioned we have had to have over 200 years of peaceful transition of power is the sign of a democracy when you have a sitting president saying it oh i'm going to call these results with you know that

means he is basically saying i'm not listening to the constitution i'm not listening to the states and doing whatever i want that is a sign of a dictator in that is exactly action that donald trump is trying to take this country into an authoritarian regime really months here in prague and in europe and you have sort of a leg in the states and also in europe do you feel like there is more respect for democracy at the moment in the european union let's say than the united states or is it just too hard to compare. well frankly there if you look at the numbers of people who are voting this year i think there's a great respect for democracy and a great fear that we're going to lose a democracy unless we vote and it is fantastic to see that turnout than ever are you are you still with us and maybe you maybe you can complete what you started saying earlier when when you started breaking up. well i'm afraid that hasn't hasn't gotten better at the moment we'll try again in a sec but in the meantime let's take

a listen to what joe biden had to say. about this topic when when asked whether he thought that donald trump would actually step down if you lost the election i promise you if in fact we win this election this president will step down a lot of bravado or he has no alternative the american people will not stand for it no agency would stand for that happening my message to the proud boys in every other way to premises group is cease and desist that's not who we are this is not who we are as americans so is that true is that can that still be said that this is not what americans like to tell this to all the clever. i think it can be said that way i mean this is not what the america that any of us vision and you know it's extremely troubling to me that even now the question is put forward very simply would both candidates affirm a peaceful transfer of power if they should lose the election period biden said he

would trump said he did not and i would love to know from dan why it is he would still vote for someone who specifically refuses refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power that's it's deeply concerning that's not who we are as americans. then have our why don't you take it away here. i mean i do this on who we are as americans but you know i think that trump is just the most obvious i think i mean you could wait wait we feel from his comedy but not from there how do you know i don't need to enter a i do i do i would like you to back it up with actual evidence wait has he doesn't seem so he's got us in the past 24 hours from his net he's not going to call the election early there's there's no reason to play games he said and i don't want to . make him makes comments he makes comments that are partisan he makes comments that are supportive of his side he makes promises to what he wants to happen and

the media takes sentence fragments or hours out of context and runs with it for 2 days and this is why they do. the liberal media is completely in the tank for joe biden and trial has despite that and perhaps because of that and isn't able to 1st think i mean you know i myself have been on several programs where investment you see in the light right been. been told one thing by producers then slam something else some other topic and they take something i said out of context this is happening meet as a promise of more in the media as well so are all well you can say these are cursed want to discourage that eduardo really is a 2nd here because i have a sound bite i would like to bart to listen to because there might be another reason why there is at least with some media a certain apprehension towards the on the trial. because we found out that you know democracies can only function on hard rules alone and they also need a commerce common understanding of how you treat each other and so we have

a sound bite by donald trump here on c.n.n. and i would like to listen to that if we have it right here you turn on c.n.n. that's all they cover hope it covered 10 democrats of it go that go. you know why the judge judge everybody out of voting people aren't buying it c.n.n. you dumb bastard said i. do you agree with this language i mean this is isn't this fueling the flame here that have a hard. oh i thought i'd search you personally would want to say that there are only about trop trumpets the crowd trouble is making the point that people want news. and want other cons don't only want cohen news and a c.n.n. and most of you see your partisan vessels that are in the tank for a job i don't maybe you don't want isn't is one what problem do in here isn't he discrediting the media and hindering the functioning of democracy with this and i would like to have to leave brian react on this before going to wrap it up please

well absolutely he is you know when you start saying you can't trust the press when you start saying these that everyone is a liar who is disagreeing with you you're basically. you're taking facts and you're twisting them and distorting them we know that donald trump is a serial liar he's on record for over 22000 lives in the last 4 years and you know he always projects in entice know what other people are doing when he really means himself and so when he's saying that c.n.n. can't be trusted and when he seen that the new york times and other really reputable. media can't be trusted he is taking this opportunity to say only you can only listen to me and think that's again a great sign of a been authoritarian leader in something that we have to really guard against and push against and we should all be listening to the this is the fox news and i listen to the wall street journal i read the wall st john we need to all be going

across the media making sure we keep open perspectives like that thank you very much story brian also thank you very much charlie kleiber and ben everhart i'm afraid we're going to have to leave it here we will continue this discussion with a different panel in about one hour during this election night and now it's back to layla herat in our main studio here in berlin with the latest results in this very interesting night of the u.s. elections. thank you so much tracker max if you're watching me to be a special coverage of the u.s. elections here are the latest developments the 1st results have been coming in with donald trump taking the states of kentucky and west virginia and joe biden winning vermont and virginia according to the a.p. voter turnout expected to be used with more than 100000000 ballots already cast on that puts this election on track to easily surpass 2016 voter

numbers. and here's some of the other election news that just coming in the trump campaign is mounting a court appeal in the state of nevada to keep polls open for an extra hour in las vegas sating late opening times deltron told his campaign workers he was optimistic but also cautioned that quote you never know losing is never easy not for me it's not meanwhile kanye west said he had cast a vote for himself and his long shot bid for president the rapper's name did not appear on the ballot in many states due to missing registration deadline and the u.s. postal service has missed a deadline to conduct an inspection of its facilities in several states a courts had ordered the post to ensure no mail in ballots were left and sent. and you can keep track of the electoral college count at the top right corner of

your screen the massive increase in mail in ballots and early voting is testing american democracy is expose an elegant tural process that critics say is fragmented and dysfunctional a system that makes some votes more important than others so who was the vote really counts will discuss right after this report. in the united states you can win an election by millions of folks but still not to become president just look at the last presidential election. so if the popular vote doesn't decide the president whose votes really count. let's take a closer look at. about 330000000 people live in the united states out of which roughly 250000000 people are eligible to vote that's 78 percent of the population. minors non-citizens and many former convicts edge booted from casting ballots but

a huge chunk of those who could vote simply don't only a little over half of eligible voters have taken part in recent elections. if that holds true again only about 137000000 people would cast a ballot. this time around expanded early voting due to the pandemic could send that number higher. but millions of votes never really end up helping the candidate for which they were cast why. because you don't win the presidency by securing enough of the national popular vote. instead candidates win by racking up enough victories in state by state contests the common 8 on election day. and virtually every state uses the winner take all system so in most states if you vote for losing count. you're out of luck. there it's only the winner who benefits from the votes cast last time around 61000000 people cast

votes for candidates who last at the state level. take texas for example president trump beat hillary clinton so under the winner takes all system texas went into his column when. the state victories add up to determine a national winner in a way that's proportional to the state's population. the winner takes all systems influence the election in another major way by focusing attention on what's called the battleground states. opinion polls and past elections mean we already know how many of the biggest states like new york or california are likely to vote. so instead of focusing on those states candidates campaign heavily in just a handful of places where the outcome is open. this time around these are some of the states that could be decisive. and out of the 137000000 likely

voters this year roughly 36000000 of them live in these battleground states that's about a 10th of the entire u.s. population. they get the lion's share of the candidates attention because they will most likely determine who wins enough of the state by state contests to claim the presidency. studies in the last election found that the vast majority of campaign events were held in only a handful of key states. critics accuse the us electoral system of being undemocratic by not giving each vote the same weight or by inflating the influence of some regions over others. to system that underlies all of this is called the electoral college and that system is unlikely to go away despite opinion polls showing that most people in america would like to see a polished. doing so take it 2 thirds agreement among lawmakers in congress that's exceptionally rare to achieve in an era of heavy partisan polarization.

all right let's discuss iran charter is here with me on the said william glue craft also here i want to start with you this is such a difficult concept to wrap your head around you know if you're not from the us because you can win the popular vote but still lose the election what does that tell us about the legitimacy of the presidency i mean it's tells us that we have a system that is doing what it intends to do which was is in power all parts of the country too are disappointed in that effect and the majority of americans don't live in rural areas and have their votes much more marginalized i think it's something that probably should be addressed and something that democrats maybe should have thought about addressing in 2000 when we had the you know spectacularly a president who did not win the popular vote when the electoral college and now that is of course mission impossible i mean could you foresee william

a moment when the electoral that alec tauriel electoral system is changed and amended to reflect the popular will of the people i could actually see it happening to add one point to that report we just saw the hard way to change this is through congress in a constitutional moment and that's a really difficult thing to get anybody to agree on the states also have to agree on it but there's also another way which is this national state compact basically we have to remember it's states. that decide exactly how elections get run and how those kicked out and how they send their electors and they said all the rules so the states could all get together and say you know what enough of this we're going to give all of the votes all the electoral votes of our state based on the national vote they could do that there is something that actually exists and if you get enough states to sign up so this national vote compact you can actually change it without a constitutional matter because of the states that decide this we're still far from that and it's the only states that have really signed up to the so far democratic

run states because democrats tend to benefit from huge voter turnout as the democrats of the suffered in 2016 and in 2000 from losing it winning the popular vote but losing the presidency but that is an option i find the electoral college is so unsatisfying you know if you're from most places in america you don't really feel you have a lot of agency over this election from connecticut i mean connecticut no one cares about connecticut i think bill clinton might have passed through there briefly back in the ninety's you know and if you're a democrat in connecticut doesn't really matter there's enough democrats there that democrats going to win if you're a republican in connecticut. my vote doesn't matter because democrats are going to win more or less so it's just such an unsatisfying way to pick the president united states really no matter what side you're on but then again aaron i mean it's not in the interest of the republicans to throw away with the electoral college so it's here to stay i mean the republicans you have to say are great at politics they are

a minority party in america who controls the presidency who controls the senate controls the courts and they've used the electoral college to its full advantage and they would be fools to give it up well said you know right now of course this is a general election it's not just the presidency that's up for grabs i mean there's the senate as well and congress could we see congress and the senate become democratic and then maybe this issue again maybe. be addressed by well. the changing of the electoral college may come i mean guess the democrats are favored to flip the senate and almost certainly will keep the house so and biden is favored to win the presidency we could see a blue trifecta here a democratic trifecta i would think if i were if i were a democrat my 1st priority would be vote voting reform a 2nd voting rights act because they only benefit democrats benefit when more people have better access to voting we're seeing that being played out right now

basically on every single issue republicans come down on trying to limit the vote limit access the vote based on based on baseless claims of fraud and democrats are trying to keep things more open more broad you know and this is not unique to donald trump has been for decades and decades that's why we have the civil the voting rights act back in the sixty's passed make it easier especially for black people to exercise their right to vote and ever since that voting rights act has been chipped away at you know and there's been an increase in the voter id laws and they do have a signature and needed to have a witness and you know limited places where you could vote all of these things all these small insidious ways to prevent people especially people of lower income people of color from voting and those are all you know core democratic voters those are some fundamental problems that were current that william just aligned why does that keep happening i mean i hate to say it in this way but democrats don't seem they seem very squeamish about wielding power you see the hand wringing happening

about the supreme court now should we increase do we not increase when it comes time to eliminate the electoral college i think you'll see a lot of dissent from establishment democrats of it doesn't seem like the right time to do something this big the right way to do something this big it seems sort of untoward and so i'm actually pessimistic that you'll see big structural change to the ways that we vote or the way that we count votes. democrats never govern like they have a mandate even when they do like what we saw barack obama huge. turn out for him republicans always govern like they have a mandate even when they don't and republicans have known for 30 or 40 years of the path of the presidency the path to long term control of politics and the direction of the country is through really boring and very unsexy local and state politics and getting those state legislatures under republican control so you control how districts think distracting works which effects which affects house results and it affects the electoral college all of these things that lead to you know 102030 years down the line that lead to locks on as just said the supreme court or the

house not the moment but the house what it might otherwise not be or the president about winning the popular vote but winning the electoral college right here watching d.w. news this is our special coverage of the u.s. election we're bringing you live results and analysis the 1st here's a look now at voters lining up across the country today they set aside worries about the coronavirus to turn out in person and have their say over who should be the next u.s. president.

you're watching video your special coverage of the u.s. elections right now polls are closing in several eastern and central states results have been coming in and a tight contest is unfolding voter turnout is expected to be huge with more than 100000000 ballots already cast what's this election on track to easily surpass 2016 voter numbers. all right let's check in with pablo for the latest results. well we're going to be looking at some races in detail in particular florida because florida's polling stations have all closed and it's

a very tight race indeed now let's not forget the president trump won the state back in 2016 and as we can see here joe biden and donald trump practically neck and neck so we should be getting results pretty quickly in the state of florida we're also going to be taking a look as you can see their votes counted 50 percent at the moment in neighboring georgia which also went republican in 2016 counting is still in the early stages and both president trump and joe biden have been in the lead with. donald trump leading just 53 percent to 45.8 with joe biden but let's not jump to any conclusions what we do know is that further north in the state of virginia that has been cold for the democrats that it's 13 electoral votes this state which used to be. a republican state will stay in the last several years in several

elections has become a democrat state and we're seeing that that is once again the case although as we're looking here joe biden in this graphic actually has less but it does look like it's been cold for the democrats at the moment now if we take a look here at our mop more and more states are closing as we speak in florida georgia north carolina has also closed around 30 minutes ago as well kentucky has already been called for president from west virginia vermont has gone to joe biden and as i said virginia too and there are other states which are closing pennsylvania has just closed in the past 2 minutes in fact and also some big states have partially closed to michigan has closed kansas the dakotas and the big prize which is texas. also other big states in what we called the blue wool big sort of mainly democrat voting states which is massachusetts illinois even

delaware rhode island connecticut maryland they've also closed too but we are expecting that they should go to the democrats and some of the states as well in what's known as the red wall. the dakotas and tennessee and let's take a look at how things are looking just after 3 minutes passed to see president trump with 22 votes as we speak joe biden with 16 and of course stop number 270 but let's keep our eye on how things are going in florida in particular and of course in texas it hasn't all closed yet in texas we still have to wait a little while longer and of course as i said pennsylvania which everybody's told me and a nearly forgot to mention ohio of course has changed another one of the big swing states so i'm going to hand you a 100 back now to. probably washington birch if you know as paul is standing by for us. standing in front of the white house we could get some big results

in this hour florida went for it to where trump last time what's the expectation this time around does he have to hold on to florida. right it's it's indeed true at this point it looks like as if it. would need florida but it's still a little bit early to say big as he is running behind in 4 crucial swing states which he won 4 years ago but we don't know yet but what we know is right here in front of the house white house that the mood is getting a little dense we just had a little incident there was a an african-american trump supporter he got in some dispute with the police there is more police coming in like as more results are coming in you feel the mood is changing and people are really getting excited. touches

a little bit about the people and that are behind you who is who is there. so we saw a whole group of electrical scooters biden harry supporters they had big flakes they were cruising around and then some trump supporters came with their flags like some evan jelly cause some people who told us earlier that they were praying against abortion and they just managed to toucan to get out of each other's way by there more and more people coming here and showing who they support with t. shirts with heads it's getting colder a lot of flakes are here we hear more music and also like speeches giving behind me closer to the white house so it's a really. really a mix of people who is slowly gathering here at the black lives matter plaza in the heart of washington d.c.

ines poll out reporting from washington thank you for now what i had to buy his home state of delaware did of his offer sal it is there for you how are things so looking where you are. well there's a big tension will cause in a certain nervousness if you speak to people who speak to voters which we did throughout the day of course people know that we might not even get the results here today in this very historic election that looks no different than any other election that we've seen in recent years of course in part because of the pun demi going part because of the polarized and very bitter campaigning of president trump and joe biden that we have seen here so it's unclear right now the whole things will go on lee if we get a very decisive victory of one of the 2 candidates will this move ahead wary quickly as we know there are many mail in ballots still underway so it might take days and therefore also many people telling us that they really fear the outcome of

this election and now of course we've been marveling all evening about the record turnout in in well in modern times basically refutes interests this election day despite the ongoing pandemic what was it like today where you were. now that's right leyla and you know countrywide just the early voting was a record in and off itself with more than 100000000 taking to the polls even before election day today nevertheless was yet another busy day at the polls again you feel the level of polarization here when you speak to people and again it's a different election with the pen damage ongoing with the mail in ballots you have different situations in every state for instance in pennsylvania these mail in ballots can be received a couple days after election day they will not start counting them though until

tomorrow it's a very different situation in florida where we're currently waiting for the results to come in where they actually started counting those mail in ballots so it's very unclear right now and it's a very diffuse situation very much in flux and we will simply have to wait a couple hours to get an idea if at all we will get an election result here tonight oh i thank you so much i want to bring it back to the studio now with me here at the table is a room to charity filmmaker who worked on barack obama's campaign in 2008 and we also have to give us where you grew croft from our u.s. election team william what do you make of the results that have come in so far how is it shaping up i mean i don't make a lot of it at all because we really don't have a lot of results i mean a lot of these states that are being called by associated press it's a lot it's still a lot of projections you know of the 500 percent of the votes not not counted yet but we know as we said earlier by this electoral college we know what the safe democratic states are what the safe republican states are my gut feeling from just

knowing what i know what i've seen from years and years and years of elections that you know democrats always have a hard time in florida and that's going to be a really really tough nail biter for joe biden for sure i mean for donald trump as well but and in a way maybe more than more so for donald trump because donald trump. has as we've been saying fewer paths to victory every state he loses that maybe he wanted to as a 16 is makes it that much harder for him to to overcome was already a very difficult hill for him joe biden can afford a little bit more to lose a state here lose a state there is still have other paths to victory if joe biden loses florida and he picks up wisconsin michigan pennsylvania as traditionally democrats tend to especially wisconsin michigan he'll still be well over that to 70 that he needs so that's kind of where we are right now what is it with florida i mean it is always very close it's always keeping us on the edge of our seats what is it well i mean

number one it's a really big state with a lot of people in it and in the country we're not everyone votes that means there's this huge pool of people to always go poll more folks from but also has such a diverse community even sides diverse community when you look at the latino vote in florida you're looking at big voting blocks you know cubans venezuelans a know besides puerto ricans in the minute ins and things that you would find in new york and so trump over performing with these folks may be a specific thing to florida that may not mean that he's going to do the same in arizona and may not be the same in nevada but we're going to have to see florida's just a special special place to thank you so much for and now. that want to go now while the u.s. election year is always a big deal both nationally and internationally but 2020 has been something else altogether from the coronavirus pandemic to black lives matter protests america has had a roller coaster year. for president trump thinks election year was supposed to be

great the best is yet to come but it didn't take long for 2020 to turn into something quite different. lives lost. jobs lost. a virus that shut down much of america. kovac 90 not the democratic hoax trump alluded to. it's going to disappear one day it's like a miracle it will disappear when all was caught and in the middle of a pandemic a black man pinned to the ground by a police officer who has his knee on his neck. minutes later george floyd is dead.

america erupting in protest. anger that yet another black person has died in the hands of police. actually getting by right now at times appearing out of control president trump promising to restore law and order by force. today i have strongly recommended to every governor to deploy the national guard in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets. outside the white house the plan apparently in place is protest is not dispersed with tear gas. and rubber bullets. clearing the streets to enable trump and his entourage. to walk to a local church for

a photo op. a defining image of 2020. along with this one painted on a washington street close to the white house. while the flames of racial tension have been burning across the country many u.s. states have also been struggling with another apocalyptic crisis the outbreak of wildfires. from the rocky mountains of colorado. to california's wine country millions of acres have gone up in smoke. hundreds of thousands of people forced to evacuate. 2020 setting a record for wildfire activity in california alone.

meanwhile covered 19 has also refused to die down. while deaths have continued to rise so to have divisions over how best to control it. the simple face mask taking on political significance. with donald trump mocking joe biden for choosing to wear one. i don't have i don't wear a mask like him every time you see me got a mask he could be speaking 200 feet away from really shows up with the biggest mask i've ever seen or who are in your walter reed hospital who are going to do or . be just days later it's confirmed that president trump has himself been trying to the virus. he's given all this agenda and taken to hospital where he's treated with a cocktail of drugs. in a controversial move and while still fighting covert 19 truck pays a surprise visit to. porters who've gathered outside walter reed hospital.

he's finally released but the virus has spread throughout the white house already told her. how many are 1st offered but thank. you for the partners. in fact scientists believe this event is probably the virus super spread. this ceremony in the white house rose garden when trump formally announces amy tony barrett as his supreme court pick. that decision because of another 2020 show. the death of justice ruth bader ginsburg. the 87 year old u.s. supreme court john jay liberal icon. now replaced by

a prime life conservative with a job for life thanks. 2021 year of anxiety and one most americans would surely rather put behind them. so eventful 2020 to say the least and now the election even raising the eggs are you stakes more for americans aroon i mean we've just we've just outlined basically you know the who ran the surveillance of 2020 global pandemic record unemployment wildfires unprecedented wildfires in california economic collapse and greater division in the american society than ever before you know which candidate can bring whoever wins can they bring the country back together when they assume the highest office in the land i think they can and i think the idea of kind of finding common ground to rally everyone around is not necessarily what

needs to happen i think the country is hungry for an aggressive economic stimulus coronavirus and other things and that politics of kind of push that into the background we've seen both parties kind of leave the table of where that happens and so i i do think that americans are ready for bold transformational change and that joe biden you know should he win has a real mandate to try and make good on that and now this is a very. divided and polarized united states that we're witnessing. well before our very eyes whoever wins afterwards i mean these divisions are not going to be overcome overnight no and they didn't start with donald trump where you can't say it enough donald trump is a symptom not a cause i mean you can go back to you know the moral majority with newt gingrich trying to you know when the republicans figure hey if we take of energies wedge issues guns abortion god flag these kinds of cultural. ties and cultural

issues we can win elections that way this has been a long time coming bubbling and bubbling and bubbling away and let's not forget the obama years calling him hitler just because he wanted to reform health care by you know this much really not a not a huge health reform in the big grand scheme of things i mean really vicious stuff over the last many years and donald trump comes out of that and i think everyone in america needs to take a real hard look at you know just what kind of system do we have here and what kind of things are we focusing on the presidency and the election for president campaign has become such a personality cult before trump trump stepped into that really he was the perfect person to fill that kind of personality cult that we had been building and building we saw that with barack obama as well people loved him didn't really think a lot about his policies or thought about what he you know his optics they thought about the what he stood for his side the symbols that he he kind of stood for it's not really about concrete policies about the person george w.

bush want to have a beer with him you know want to have just a normal want to normal guy in the white house these are the kinds of things that lead to this kind of partisanship and we've been seeing this tribalism really for so so long how we back out of this i hate to be such a downer but i don't know i really don't know even if joe biden wins we know what presence he would next the next president of trump will look like but he was joe biden i don't know how we come back together in a united states that that's more about america and less about these 2. tribes democrats republicans now what we've seen of course is also the discourse the political discourse in the us has become coarser on both sides of the aisle i mean i do you see do you see people going back to how it was before or have we now just kind of passed this threshold and this is just the way forward i think in some ways this is just the way forward and maybe it's the way back in a way like we have a much more partisan past of the 20th century would tell us where you know there were very partisan and sometimes outrageous sources of news that people got but the

difference was people's attitude towards them you know now you find people on facebook you know demanding that the company tell them what's true and what's not rather than kind of relying on their own education and their own sense of where they are in the world and so i do think that some of it relies on media literacy and really tackling some of that on but i don't think you can expect the structures of these things to change much any time soon i mean let's not forget this is a country that had a civil war and it's still fighting the civil war and a lot of ways the idea of you know states' rights and what is there the role of the federal government and what is the role of the states is still not really been figured out. and and this is something that is going to exist keep coming home until we figure out you know ok the central government in washington allowed to do x. y. and z. as states can do x. y. and z. . it's a really tough call for for you know the unity of i as they say if we go back to

it's very found it made a lot of compromises you know the original sin is slavery and that is something still a legacy today at the united states in very real terms is dealing with absolutely black last matter of course stuff you're watching here we use this special coverage of the u.s. election more in just a moment before so let's catch you up on the latest. blustery has declared 3 days of national mourning after 4 people were killed in a shooting rampage in the capital vienna a gunman opened fire at multiple locations in the city center he's been identified as a 20 year old sympathizer of the so-called islamic state militant group police have arrested more than a dozen suspects in the hunt for possible accomplices of the killer. an eerie quiet on the streets a few as the city woke up to his sense of dread. i did not sleep i feel for i still feel the panic.

nervous forit i live in the neighborhood next to our from there you could hear a lot police have regained control over the city center after the dramatic shooting on monday night chance was about staying cool condemned what he called an islamistic terror attack. it's very it was an attack out of hatred out of hatred for our often amount of values out of hatred for our way of life out a favorite for our democracy people are equal in rights and dignity. but one thing is clear we will not be intimidated by the terrorists. until monday austria has been spared large scale terror attacks motivated by religious extremism and urged his country meant to remain united in the face of this new threat. we must be

aware that this is not a conflict between christians and muslims or between australians and migrants know this is a fight between the many people who believe in peace and those few who want. thank the 1st gunshots rang out shortly after 8 pm the gunman was killed in the ensuing fight he was later identified as a 20 year old man with both austrian and north macedonian citizenship he was jailed last year after trying to join the islamic state in syria he was later released. the police are knows with going through videos sent in by eyewitnesses to determine if he was a lone shooter. the video so far gave no indication of a 2nd perpetrator however since the revelation has not yet been completed we

cannot finally say how many perpetrators are actually responsible for the crime. and. chancellor courts went to the site of the shooting to pay his respects to the victims declaring 3 days of national in mourning. period. let's take a look at some of the other stories making news around the world the president of ivory coast. has won a controversial 3rd term in office the election was boycotted by the opposition to set up a parallel administration police have been deployed outside the home of the main opposition leader amid growing fears of post-election unrest. argentine soccer star is to undergo brain surgery for a blood clot the 60 year old was taken to hospital on monday for tests after feeling unwell are done as doctors says the procedure is a routine operation if all goes well he could be home again in 48 hours.

britain has raised its terror threat level to severe its 2nd highest following attacks in austria and france severe means that an attack is considered highly likely the u.k. home secretary says the decision is a precautionary measure and not based on any specific threat from her we that's all for now back to our u.s. election coverage and. and watching the special coverage of the u.s. elections right now polls are closing in several eastern and central states results have been coming in with both candidates all ready winning several states order turnout is expected to be here it's with more than 100000000 ballots already cast and that puts this election on track to easily surpass 2060 voter numbers. trumps attacks on mail in ballots in his refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power has raised the specter of

a disputed election so some scada reports. donald trump versus joe by the race could be so tight that neither of them emerge as a clear winner the u.s. could be in for days even weeks of uncertainty the record number of ballots sent by mail could become the focus of a bitter fight. absentee ballots made it easier for americans to vote in this local damage but those ballots are also more likely to be delayed slowed down by mistake even projected if it's an extremely close election and the outcome could turn on absentee ballots that have not been processed or counted by election night with pennsylvania and wisconsin being states that are most likely to be in that position . then i think we do start moving into a more dangerous period we will 1st see fights oh over whether certain absentee

ballots should be counted or not be counted with the election administrators in those states it won't be surprising if whichever side loses those battles runs to court to try to get a court to overturn it the clock starts ticking on november 3rd election day there are a couple of dates to keep in mind. december 8th is safe harbor day that is the deadline for states to declare a result if they want to guarantee that their decision will count towards the national outcome the next deadline on december 14th the electoral college has to vote that is the body that actually elects the president the states select either republican or democratic electors depending on the results if there is still a dispute at that point it could get really complicated both sides might claim victory that means states could end up with opposing groups of electors one for biden another for trump congress would be forced to decide between them but if we

get to that point we're already in a dark and dangerous place and if the process drags out over some significant period of time even though the media is preaching patience to the public i think in our social media toxic political culture that could become a more explosive situation. fairly quickly. some americans worry that a more explosive situation could look like this the president's supporters and opponents fighting on the streets law enforcement and even the military could be called in to bring things under control. and what about another scenario that democrats fear and that president trump himself has refused to rule out that he rejects the result if he loses and tries to hang on to the presidency while the current president's term ends on january 20th by virtue of the constitution period

i would assume that any officials who might need to be involved in making sure that transition happens will follow the commands of the newly elected president biden because he would be the president. the legal fight has already started the democrats and the republicans have amassed an army of lawyers who have been clashing in court over how and when ballots should be counted those cases should be concise and in the outcome of dealing. with me here still are in choudhry and william a glue crofter william could we really see president trump not concede and and what would what would happen i think the big question is to answer that. how much might one candidate or the other win by and how soon will we know it and how much time goes by will also decide also determine how much time the trump campaign

as they've said they will will sow doubt into the credibility of these results i think it'll be interesting you know if we see a big biden or a certain biden win tonight if trump will say no no when you wait for all those to be counted which of course contradict what he said earlier which is he basically wants a decision tonight based on whatever votes are in tonight. i think we can definitely be pretty sure that there's going to be court challenges on both sides in many the swing states we could be seeing a florida 2000 on steroids situation where what we saw in florida being of the count being challenged going all the way up to the supreme court which is now a 63 in favor of conservatives 3 of those judges are donald trump's picks so we can see that in multiple states i think the real extreme dark scenario of violence of unrest i think we're still a very far way away from i think we should be very careful not to be putting that idea into viewers' minds to sort of create

a self filling prophecy because i think we're very far from that now both sides are already lawyer up i mean that's already underway so there will be a legal issues to be fought over could we see it we're a long dragged out post election process absolutely and i think it will play out like a 1000000 florida you know like a 1000000 hanging chads it'll be you know preventing people from counting which is sort of the classic way these things have happened whether it's l.b.j. or. george w. bush when elections are sort of shady like this it's not that things are counted wrong it's not a court asks people to stop counting something we have no legal reason to recount this or to count these in the 1st place and so i think keep an eye on these kind of cases that apple really matter you know if it's a biden blowout it might not matter of trump concedes or not it will be clear and much like the coronavirus these were real deny the facts of that is excess of the counties here in pennsylvania exactly but if it's close that concession will be important let's take a problem yes the latest results. we're

going to take a look at some races in detail and at the moment it's not looking too good in florida for joe biden that's not forget the president trump won back in 2016 he won old 29 electoral college votes as we can see there 86 percent of the votes counted and president trump is ahead at the moment so we could be getting a result from there pretty soon also we're going to be keeping a look at ohio too that's another swing state 18 electoral college votes at the moment joe biden is ahead against president trump but of course just one percent of votes are counted at the moment and texas which has traditionally been a republican state the democrats were hoping to flip dot to a democrat state it's a big 138 electoral college votes traditionally as i said republican at the moment it keeps going from joe biden back to donald trump and as we see there 27 percent

of the votes in joe biden is ahead at the moment but of course plenty more votes to be counted in the state so let's take a look at how things are shaping up the moment we can already see that some of those states that we're almost expecting to go to the republican candidate for president trump of course alabama mississippi south carolina tennessee kentucky west virginia and oklahoma at the moment we're seeing that some states have already gone no also not a shock to joe biden places like illinois vermont and the states up in the northeast like massachusetts rhode island connecticut virginia to new jersey but we're keeping our eye on those swing states pennsylvania ohio north carolina there were some problems in north carolina with voting and they've actually extended the voting and fact it closed just a few minutes ago in that state but like i said we're keeping our eyes firmly fixed on florida at the moment to see what is happening there because. it's really tight

on at the moment joe biden has 85 of those college electoral votes president trump has 55 they need to get that out wonderful number of 270 ad least and we'll be keeping you up to date of course now back to. that chick non-virgin all right there we're going to go to max understand is that correct yes we're going to go to max. and well the it's been a turbulent year as we've been reporting for social justice and civil rights in the united states how have the impact at the trump presidency and his chances for reelection for more let's cross now to the next hoffman for. our special what happened there actually. we need to talk about race when george floyd was killed by a police officer in minneapolis this had repercussions all across the world racism

seems to be raising its ugly head again and it seems some like it that way that's something we need to discuss today and here are our guests on this panel gloria brown marshall civil rights attorney author a professor of constitutional law and she says the reason even the russians are attacking the black vote is to undermine it in order for the conservatives to stay on top they understand how important the black vote is and ms brown marshall will be joining us today from new york city we also have on the panel brandon tate and he's a conservative activist an ex police officer and he says mr trump is one of the greatest achievers of our time and he's joining us today from scottsdale arizona arizona a possible swing state although he's not hoping for that as he told me earlier today and finally we have moxy me who is a member of the european parliament since 2019 for the far right identity and democrat democracy group there he's

a member of the delegation for the relation with the u.s. and he says biden is the weakest presidential candidate in u.s. history his only point he's not charged up mr cross will be joining us tonight from brussels in belgium welcome everybody before we kick off the discussion here is what democratic candidate joe biden had to say about president trump when it comes to racism abraham lincoln here's one of the most racist prisoners we've had in modern history he pours shool on every single free fire every single one started off his campaign coming down the escalator saying to rid of those mexican rapist he banned muslims because they're muslims he has moved around and made everything worse across the board. from marshall 1st question to you has made racism socially acceptable again. i don't think he's made

racism socially is acceptable because there are certain people who wouldn't accept it i think that he has stoke the fire of what's already here in a country that started off in slavery and started out with the genocide of native americans and jim crow segregation and what we have now with george floyd's murder there are a lot of great police officers out there but there are some bad apples as there are any group and he had the last of the bad apples to do actually rise to this or this too often so yes he stoke the flames of racism and i think he's also allowed like woodrow wilson another president that for political expediency it's a high price to pay in this country to get in office and stay in office based on the vision as opposed to bringing people together mr tatum would you like to react to that as you know as a former police officer i think that is incredibly disingenuous and i don't believe is true president trying to speak for all americans who love this country who love the constitution and who love freedom so that's what presidents from stances on his

podium to speak i've been to the white house several times i've made it clear to people within his staff and i do not feel any way president trump is adding to racism i think that to the contrary democrats are doing just that when you look at george floyd it was a horrible situation to happen to him had nothing to do a race he just so happen to be black also just so happen to be white so conveniently enough to dupe the democrats and the liberals or push the racial narratives president trump and many of the conservatives are trying to wash it away mr tatum let me ask you a follow up on this how do you explain that don't trump has always had a problem with the black vote. well i think republicans in general have a problem with the black vote president strong got more votes from the black community did mitt romney when he ran against president barack obama so it's a republican thing is not necessarily a trump think if you added if you if you talk about trump exclusively trump has got more of the black vote to any republican in our modern history of this a regular mr crow i would like to go over to you and to get a little more of

a perspective from from brussels here do you feel like the events in the united states including the killing of george floyd has reignited racism in europe unfortunately yes because it is this way slept over to us and i'm i think that now everything is racism because we have changed beat the meaning of to divert and cry over it man this guy rick discrimination of people but now we talk about systemically system which means that i was good pommes is seen as somehow racist because is there an islamic racism in germany according to you i don't see it no i don't. this is an american debate that comes from the universities and i don't think it is and i'm very tolerant and i don't think it has much relevance in reality miss brown

marshaled i know it's not your necessarily your field of expertise but do you feel like this has ignited something globally what's been happening in the united states . well actually i do travel a great rock i mean i find that there's a conversation you can always you can ignore gravity if you want to but when you don't jump off a tree see where you fall i think that this conversation is one in which it's actually quite rudimentary we know that prejudice is to exist we know it all these different countries that were involved in in segregation we know that there's discrimination we know that you know there are based issues making plays from the route boys and white militia the f.b.i. is indication that there's been a rise in hate crimes as well as a rise in race based militia groups so people can put their head in the stand and pretend like nothing exists and maybe they'll live that long but if if our police

officer and as a black son you know better than a lot of them go out and and you know the dangers that are in the world if he had a black mother that she's told him what the dangers are in the world but if his career has allowed him to enter our position and where she can ignore the reality of african-american life then so be it that's his choice but i have been touching down and police are telling the a lot both of you mr tatum and miss brown marshall and police brutality and racism of course have been linked numerous times this year the killing of george floyd is one example the movement black lives matter is especially vocal about this and here's what the president had to say about black lives matter. many of those who are spreading violence in our cities are supporters of an organization called the black lives matter. it's really it's really hurting the black community it's holding back.

mr tatum question to you here the president is trying to blame black lives matter for violence is this correct assessment in your point of view. i don't think the president trying to blame he's just speaking facts i'm black are group black my whole family's black my son is black and i can see that black lies better is not helping the calls to help black people do anything if you ask me what is black life matter done for black people in america in general nothing all they do is protest only when a white officer kills a black man with a black man was guilty or not they only protest in i don't see them out protesting with young brothers a shot in the middle of the street to the in the tools of thousands of homicides committed by black people against other black people but lives matter they're completely silent so when you look at the protests you look at the buildings burning you look at people getting shot at middle of the street you look at why people get attacked it at restaurants you see it being perpetuated by people

holding the name black lives matter and that's why the president say that and that's our that's why i believe the same sense of ms brown marshall do you feel there is some truth to what mr tate i'm saying here. i think that there are also white militia groups. groups that are actually setting these buildings on fire and it's already been proven by me i think i am guessing that they were yes well not anti full of the right conservative groups that are saying these fires as they are worries or my game where what you really want me out some of these groups that are setting these fires to stop relationships and in the vengeance i have nothing against the brother i mean i have nothing against what he has to say is this it everybody has their own opinion i'm a constitutional law scholar so i believe in free speech i believe in different people's opinions so all i'm saying from my opinion there are race or racial issues in this country they have been stopped by donald trump based on f.b.i. data it shows an improvement in crimes during the time period our child has been in

office and if i could just say this one thing in my book she took justice i talk about not just what's happening today but what that history is of this country and that history is a race based country and which may still have this huge is all the racial divisions we had before and they can be why didn't they be can be close they don't go away and if people have been successful as black people that's fine i'm all for that but that need to stand well i don't want all these men and yes mr taylor actually there get out of the argument or oh mr crosby your 1st mr hodden mr tatum let's go for that ok mr crowley you're up only don't run brought the lowest unemployment rate for black americans. emira simpletons ever he increased the average income of the black communities he started criminal laurie small so he made

a lot of efforts which are in favor of the black community so i think these are the points that matter and mult the 200 years ago it was little. in the u.s. you know different but let some of them up like my body is going to create interest for every little i was going on right now. they're going to say ms brown marshall will get to you right mr crump please wrap it up and then we'll go have miss problem are still going to though it could only carry on do the crime before it means if you have some prospects and then you see trump changes the life conditions ultimate community to the better while correct obama changed it to the to the birth so it doesn't change anything if you refer to history look at income look at unemployment rate look at crime lore and then you see that but i'm a little overwhelmed. all right i'm plowing that went down across the border and he

didn't do it specifically for anybody in atlanta you know didn't mind being able quark's around with him like everyone and happened to go down for black people as well it was not when you got to go down for black people and process i want i criticize or not barack obama did you i didn't think he was perfect but what i what i'm saying here is that this was not a focus oh trauma administration to help the black community and if you're in the time period we are looking at it but people have done well they've done well this racism but there's i just call it still exists i mean it's a committee voted and you're nice i want to say that everybody i would like to because we don't have that much time left and we still have something very important to talk about it which is the african-american community in the united states and cold it as you might know the death rate among african-americans is double that of white people in the u.s.

what does this tell us about how african-americans are being treated in the u.s. mr tatum europe. i don't think is has much to do with how african-americans being treated is how african-americans are participating in behaving when you do not eat a healthy diet you're not exercising and doing the things you need to keep your body healthy you are susceptible to some of these ailments we have seen this across the board before kovi but people die from heart disease diabetes at higher rates than others it has and it has minimal to do with what people are doing sort of black community and but don't you think if you say this is going to win i don't see this is helping joe biden in this election because they feel neglected no i don't i don't believe so i think that black people have been influenced in some in some cases have been brainwashed by democrats to feel their president trouble is that evil race is made which is not true that has more play on it then the coronavirus clearly you can look out anywhere in any city in the united states of america you will see thousands of black people out protesting not social distancing not wearing

masks doing all types of looting and you can name it you see hundreds of thousands of people across the our country who are over the period of 6 months that they clearly don't care about a slightly wrong masonry what you are saying is that they are living less healthy lives and that their have less discipline when it comes to the corona measures do you agree with that assessment ms brown marshall. well we already know that donald trump walked around and gave his own son the coronavirus because he would wear a mask we saw the yes yes he's having a program today where he's going to have $400.00 people they're not going to wear masks they're he's not going to rallies they don't wear masks so i don't know why we're focusing on black people not wearing masks when glance warrant is around me symbol who actually showing people and the people around him who are not wearing matt going now and contaminating others that he's already causing now 100 deaths and over 30000 cases because the people in his cult following continue to go

without mass continue just not social distance and you know as i said people should have your. head in the sand but it doesn't what it comes down to the country is still full it's cruel steady an example world in example that instead it is a poor one because we want a person in the white house who cares only about himself and rich people getting richer and a cult following that wants to do whatever he says no matter if it's to their detriment mr crawley's we have a lot of areas we have a very short finish this up but i would like your perspective why do the united states and by the way also some european countries fail to protect their people of color against this pandemic adequately. because because they they say we kong look only only on the corona why would also have to take into consideration the consequences of all policies so it's a question do you focus 100 percent fighting to virus or do you think ok we find the virus but we also take care that we don't crush our economy completely and this

is something every country has to decide but don't you have to do about the people of color mr prout what does that have to do specifically with the color of the skin of people and for example in the u.k. i think we have a very similar phenomenon to the u.s. where the death rate among people of color is much much higher than among white people. i don't know how is the situation in european countries with the with the sickness to come to a black community i don't know whether we have all said differences between the community and among black community and we do in your case for example i think my my comp my colleague from from arizona knows it better and it sounds very possible that the black community just takes one of them through careers on ponder on this issue and is more relaxed and obviously equal says. he's being looked at. a park 0 about how are you were down on everybody i think you have it's almost

wrong marshall real quick. i think that if it's somebody i just believe anything these are scholars there are people who are just speaking out that i have and i know it's unfortunate but there are issues in the black community that deal with health that have been ongoing and the services that need to be provided and the fact that so many people call are on the front lines in so therefore when you contaminated people from the trauma brownlee's come out into public and we're on the fur lines to be contaminated by there now is that not thank you very much everybody you and i and you sorry we had to read to that this is a very lively discussion indeed thank you very much. enjoy your electro election evening enjoy the elections and with that i would like to head back over to our main studio here in berlin to lay the. thanks max the a deepening political divide in the u.s.

some growing presence of armed militia groups on the streets are heightening fears that violence could breakouts after all lection day. for. these images are fresh in the minds of many american voters. use it destructive protests and violence right we backlash dominated headlines for much of the summer and early fall. i've been traveling the country and talking to voters and if there's one thing americans expect in november more than a decisive victory for either joe biden or donald trump it's violence that goes for biden supporters and all these different extremist groups and militias i'm concerned for people think we're not going to let up peacefully as well as trump supporters i think if by loses there will be violence there's going to be a civil war. yes i believe we're going to strike the right not to let it put up

with me and i put up with this man is going to be a civil war we don't do this i mean you're sure to try to are going to try to do or think it's not going to happen we're going to stand up for what we believe in we're going to do the american way but is this just talk or is the prospect of post-election chaos a legitimate concern. one of the reasons people are talking about this is because it is happening. the data does show that there has been a rise in the number of terrorist plots and attacks in the u.s. in 2020 about 2 thirds of them through the 1st 8 months were caused by white supremacists and far right far right extremists in about 20 percent by anti-fascists anarchists and other violent. but it's not just in the. we were discussing the possibility of disorder in november and beyond law enforcement has already begun to prepare conversations across state local long.

federal agencies or just as national counterterrorism center there is. about tension for violence after the election and also increased their cause to try to mitigate those risks by. f.b.i. and attrition. it's not surprising that many americans are uncertain of how donald trump will act if you lose the election he's been asked that very question and refused to give a clear answer would you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transfer for a one hour after the election. just dodging the possibility that he could very well lose to joe biden really implying that he would refuse to accept the outcome of the election. when pressed another time on the peaceful transition of power from said that yes he would allow biden to take office if you want but some analysts say that

trump is trying to gain an advantage by casting doubts on mail in ballots and other common voting practices. that our electoral system is. not simply over water. that's rich and that the only way for the system to demonstrate its legitimacy is for. social media companies like twitter and facebook have promised to clamp down on calls for violence after the election like the law enforcement agencies they believe a peaceful transition of power will require all hands on deck. articulate a song on how the night is shaping up for joe biden let's go to oliver salad in the democratic challengers home state of delaware all over you for ported on some of the militia groups that have sprung up around this presidential election i mean how do you see them as a threat and possible post-election violence. potentially

leyla it all comes down to what the outcome is of this election so if you look at a scenario where you would have where you might see a narrow trump lead donald trump in the lead and then on this night perhaps and then within the next days when the mail in ballots come in this would be turn around and this would play exactly into the rhetoric of donald trump who's been saying that the mail in ballots are rigged that there are prone to fraud that the democrats are trying to steal the election and then what would what could happen is that you would see those groups taking to the street they feel very much emboldened by president trump's rhetoric we remember the president presidential debate very refused. to say that to distance himself from those groups by saying proud boys addressing one of those groups stand back but also stand by and of course there are

concerns now i've spoken to extremism experts for that documentary the radical states of america that was just you know don't do w. and they told me that the biggest concern they have is spontaneous violence as a result right all over now what these groups see any democrat victory as somehow illegitimate and then reason to instigate violence. not any i mean if there is if there is a very decisive victory then it will be hard to argue of course and it really depends also what the president will then say and what kind of rhetoric he will use and if he in science and and called to go out on the street that's part of every munch not likely of their sort of size of biden week to read tonight as of now as you know there are no big surprises so it still looks a bit like a nail biter until at least until we know more and until the bigger states are called and in our last remaining 30 seconds which states are most volatile right

now oliver well we're looking at florida right now where there is a tiny leaves for donald trump broad knowledge texas is also a very big prize those 2 states and could make the past a victory for donald trump a very narrow long should you lose any of the 2. reporting from delaware thank you for now. you're watching or didn't read news and this is our special coverage of the u.s. election the day america the size or bring you live results and allow us is a research that is still too close to call but 1st here's a look at scenes of progress america alex things.

you're watching to tell you special coverage of the u.s. elections results are flowing in as polling stations close incumbent republican donald trump and democrat candidate joe biden are vying to be the next president of the united states all turnout has been high with over 100000000. ballots cast in early and absentee voting all that puts this election on track to easily surpass 2016 voter numbers. and i want to hand you over to pablo who has the latest results. well we're going to take a look at some races in greater detail. that was talking there about florida we're keeping our eyes very very close on florida it's really tight there let's not forget the president trump one there in 201629 electoral college votes up for grabs

in that state we're also going to be taking a look at ohio to actually we're going to be getting the results 1st before i move on to ohio z.-i things are looking in florida as i said 29 electoral votes there 89 percent of votes and it's looking like it's tipping in the favor of donald trump but let's wait and see until we get older those results in before we can really see what happens in florida ohio another one of those big swing states 18 electoral college votes over 50 percent of the votes are in at the moment 53 percent joe biden at the moment is in the lead there. 44 percent but of course states like ohio you have to wait and see how things things pan out so we'll keep our eyes there taxes a big prize because it's been traditionally republican but democrats have been really hoping on flipping it and at the moment joe biden 50 percent of the most

moment $47.00 but only 54 percent of the votes are counted there were also really keeping our eye on north carolina that's a battleground state it has 15 electoral college votes president trump won there the last time at the moment it's looking good for joe biden with 52 percent and 71 percent of votes are counted so far there so we'll be it's really holding open this race of the moment and let's take a look at have the mock and of course we're seeing states like pennsylvania and ohio where they've already closed north carolina as well georgia as well as another one it's looking like it's tipping in the. favor of president trump florida at the moment is well texas as well as i was mentioning and then of course there's plenty of those states which tend to go either blue or red of course up in the northeast places like massachusetts new jersey connecticut rhode island tend to go for the

democratic candidates in places like arkansas mississippi tennessee alabama kentucky tending to go for president trump so no shocker there and of course there are other places closing such as our arizonans over in the west everyone is seeing what's happening there texas as well let's take a look at the tally. 3 minutes past 3 central european time joe biden on 85 president trump on 72 but it's really really hung up now so back to the desk thank you so much paul flow i want to head to washington now and our bureau chief there in this hole in this is some big results coming in in the next hour or so key states polls have also just closed i want to get your take. yeah obviously it's going to be really really really close it's going down to florida and everybody predicted and obviously pennsylvania as well so it's getting

no really exciting it's really hard to tell we just have to wait to see and really you know well look state after state after state it's still neck and neck in some of the most decisive states at this very moment now this of course has been described as a defining presidential election also one of the strangest perhaps because you know it's taking place amid a massive economic slump due to the pandemic tell us more about the conditions under which americans are voting right now. right lane i mean i was able with my team to travel this country from one coast to the other. we were on the road for 7 weeks and 7000 miles and talked to many many people i mean one of the biggest concerns obviously is the economy because of covert 90 in the united states are hit hard there is hardly any any social security

net so people are losing their jobs they're losing their health care they get evicted they're lou that losing their homes even in rich cities likes like washington d.c. more and more tense because people have to leave their homes so this is a huge question who will be the better person the better president to bring the united states back on track obviously the biden supporters think it is joe biden because his politics that's their thinking is more predictable more reliable and that's what kind of the global economy needs and then there are 2 the trump supporters and they are they fear higher taxes and some of them have fear kind of a more socialistic approach meaning that the states is taking more control and it was very interesting they went to florida to do a story. a woman from cuba cuban american and she

explained it very vividly actually how much she is that things she experienced as a child in cuba might happen again when biden and come of the harris are in charge for her as for others for many obviously in florida the narrative from donald trump was very convincing that joe biden in kemah hair is kind of establish a communist a socialist state which there aren't any indications if you listen to them but this narrative was working. aren't ever prodding from washington in this poll thank you so much for now i want to bring. back to the studio here in brazil and aaron chavis still here with us and he'd have his way i'm glued kroft to also hear from our u.s. election team we want to get your take in terms of the results so far and

especially what you make of the battleground state of florida i mean florida is we've been saying all night a tricky weird state often the butt of many jokes politically culturally socially in the united states there are social media channels dedicated just to track all the weird stuff that comes out of florida on a more serious more serious note though it's a very diverse state i mean you have ruined a large rule white population you have as we've been talking about huge latino population which itself breaks down into many different groups cubans of venezuelans maybe more conservative like we've heard you know other latino groups breaking more liberal it's also a growing group 70 percent of the registered voters voters in florida are latino you of course have a huge older population retired population and they break both ways depending you if you have you know liberal older voters and conservative older voters and you have some very very concentrated very die hard. you know groups and communities and

counties in florida and that to just make this just a tricky state to count and as we saw in 2000 as we've seen many times it's it's just it's kind of all over the place this state so yeah we have to wait and see we're going to see i want to talk to us about that i mean there is an older demographic in florida let's talk a little bit about the seniors they're very influential has joe biden for instance been able to tap into that demographic that has been suffering from coke no absolutely it's definitely been a strategy he's employed both him and kamel harris have been very specifically to areas that have a lot of seniors in the villages and other places in southern florida like this so i do think that shaving off older folks and suburban. women very specifically has been the task the biden campaign has had in front of them and we'll see if it pays off will see if it pays off william what are the states are you looking for in terms of indications who might risk consummation in pennsylvania and that's the

ball game right that's what nascar gave the election to trump in 2016 by a difference of less than $80000.00 votes you know only in america is 80000 a bigger number than 3000000 right hillary clinton won 3000000 votes nationwide didn't matter because donald trump won 80000 votes in wisconsin michigan and pennsylvania these are traditionally democratic states bitin needs to just pull back $8000.00 and the election is really his so those are the states that we need to be looking at he could lose florida and win those other states and still become president joe biden could dump loose trump lose florida and still it's a much harder harder path to victory for donald trump he really needs to win florida not exclusively but it does get much much more difficult as member before we went into this evening the probability you know was anywhere you know 8590 percent probability that joe biden was going to win this election in 2016 it was about 7030 in favor of hillary clinton so by then in terms of just sheer

probability is looking like a better chance for winning but we all know that even with just 10 percent of a chance of winning for donald trump that is still a chance to win ok now let's turn our focus now to chess on the america because our child and she has an america have had a very rocky relationship these past 4 years where has it left us german ties. us our daily reports where even before donald trump became us president it was clear the relationship wouldn't be easy. now merkel what did she do she's destroyed i mean she's in the process of destroying germany with a migration time magazine he didn't even give me the man of the year the person of the year they should out. that's why it's heading down the tubes folks. they gave it to a woman who has not done the right thing in germany it's not doing too well over

there. that woman on the cover was in fact german chancellor angela merkel. and will once trump did become president she congratulated him on his election but in typical american style she threw in a subtle dig. so i chant munich germany and america connected by values democracy freedom respect for the law and for the dignity of human beings regardless of their origin skin color religion gender sexual orientation or political views. order. this photo of medical facing trump at a g 7 meeting went viral seen by many as a perfect illustration of their report so was their 1st encounter when trump ignored america's suggestion to shake hands thank you.

thank you. one of the biggest sources of disagreement has been nato trump has attacked germany without pause saying it was not paying its fair share towards the alliance. germany as you know is very delinquent in their. payments to nato. and they're paying one percent in this supposed to be a 2 percent and the 2 percent is very low should be much more than the so the delinquent of billions of dollars and this is for years the liquid. when trump treated racist attacks on this group of democratic us congress women openly condemned his actions. this is one of the few the midst of an achievement. i firmly distanced myself from the attacks and i stand in solidarity with these women . in america's strength from my perspective life precisely in the fact that the

people of very different nationalities have contributed to the strength of the country to. their full these a statements that are going very much. to this impression of mine for. a strained relationship but also opposite approaches like on how to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and how to wear a face mask. now with trump fighting for a 2nd term in office and mikko in her last year as chancellor it may soon be time to kiss goodbye the question is how soon. are still living here as there are charity and william a glue croft or and of course president trump has turned foreign policy upside down . bilateral relations to specifically transatlantic relations really suffered during his term in office this america 1st policy retreating from commitments

is something that started under obama. so is he just continuing what was started by obama in terms of you know just prioritizing american interests rather than you know maintaining bilaterally you know i think that's really important point you make of this isn't some kind of absolutely fresh take that trump has and in some way in some ways in listening to the american people who i do think would like to see germany increase their share of paying the nato bill but trump has sort of disregarded the friendships and relationships in a. way that i think people worry about what it's like when he picks up the phone to get something done with someone like agoa merkel when we 1st came here with obama as a berlin merkel and obama did not get along well and in fact we were denied permits to speak or wanted to speak and this was in a relationship that evolved into one of respect from a place of mutual interest and mutual understanding and i think people don't have

the faith of trump to get there with any of these people these not putting them the work in an obviously i mean he's also remarkably he's pulled out of w.h.o. he's pulled out of the iran nuclear deal he's put nato on notice i'm wondering should joe biden when there's that automatically mean that america can just slip back right into its former place or has damage been done and is it repairable and the paris climate and everybody thought oh forget about it well what biden says he's going to rejoin is going to join a lot of these things didn't we see is that you know we don't just wake up you know on january 21st with joe biden now as president if he if he were to win and everything goes back to normal every president leaves its mark every administration leaves its mark on the united states on relations around the world on the on the standing of the world you don't just put that back in the bottle and in a way that's a good thing the european union and germany especially has really been forced to

confront itself and its identity on the world stage and the european union has had to finally realize maybe there's going to come a day that we can't rely on the u.s. maybe we need to figure out what we stand as as a as a as a global power and i think that's very healthy for the e.u. which is a massive economy when you put it all together huge population you put it all together has the potential to have a lot of clout and to sort of be this middle ground between growing china and the influence that russia has especially on the eastern side of the european union and the united states on the other side so i think donald trump in a way. he has you know he might have intended it to be this way but he's really actually created an opening opportunity to reassess that relationship and joe biden will go back to that old school institutionalist transatlantic kind of cold war you know feeling of respecting of respecting allies and seeing allies as a multiplier effect and not as keeping the united states down but i don't think the

e.u. is going to just let the u.s. come back and everything will be you know that isn't creamy back in france isn't great but mr trump does have his supporters here on the continent he's not without i mean what type of supporters they enjoy here i mean i think you see people see trump is emblematic of this worldwide nativist populist movement and germany is certainly one of the homes of that and even today i saw lots of maggie hats on the spawn you know there is a lot of i think traditional conservatives whether it be people like for raj in the u.k. or other other folks who've really stuck their neck out for trump and it really sort of used him as a success story of their movement even if not necessarily someone who they want to emulate personally why does it matter for the world and it's not a hyper for the world in which direction the u.s. goes to next when you 1st like i mean the united states is more than whatever

particular policies in the midst ratio might have it's really a symbol right it's an example that is that even when the united states breaks that example repeatedly over its entire history it sets norms it sets standards it's created the very world that donald trump wants to walk away from all of these institutions globalists to shows that have come out come up after world war 2 this is we're living in a us created world in a sense and the world is looking to the united states kind of to get its cues and wants to at least again i spoke earlier about aspirations wants to at least see the present i states as. a sort of aspirational symbol of what maybe we could be even if we are actually you know the great things that we say we are now something to to work towards and i think it's especially strong in europe that the united states is always seen as its great protector against then soviet union now russia what direction you know will foreign policy take should president trump be reelected

what should we brace ourselves for should he be reelected i think look for more sort of attention grabbing. global events i mean he just treats the world stage the same way treats the american stage which is one big media opportunity he's very good at it he's very good at getting that attention but i think you'll see his sort of cry for the forgotten man even people who sort of don't believe that this is something he wants will continue to resonate in europe where the working class does feel left behind by the european project and by a lot of things that we would on this broadcast just say are normal international. organizations a lot of people do feel left behind by this and trump gives a real voice to it and that's why he can be so dangerous what i find there has been truly amazing and just kind of the last couple of months is that he has managed to reshape alliances in the middle east which has been impossible if you had said that i don't know a year ago that you would have gulf states recognizing israel and that you would

have the u.a.e. leader or foreign minister come to berlin at the holocaust memorial together with his israeli counterpart and and making that type of statement of you know friendship i tell you it's science fiction but they managed to do it trump managed to do it how come. i think because they tried you know sometimes people think these these the world order is very solidified and problems that seem intractable or intractable and maybe 99 of 100 things that tried to do we did it doesn't sit right with somebody as unconventional can't even try to make someone unconventional to be like you know what there's a trump shaped hole in this problem and i'm going to i know just what to put an end in terms of every mean we've seen also relations with china soured to a level that we haven't seen i mean should he be reelected i mean what will that mean i mean it's the 2nd economic power in the world i think with a lot of things about donald trump they confuse instinct with outcomes in

a lot of things we've just pointed out a few instincts are right you know forging that you know trying to find a way to make israel and gulf states which already have a lot of under a radar isn't is you know it was a good business in the united states of selling a lot of arms to these arab countries which actually might be against some of israel's own defense interests to make this kind of happen you know instinct with china people have been saying you know the united states and also in europe for decades we have to do something about china like this is a rising power they're going to challenge us they're you know stealing our intellectual property manipulating their currency human rights abuses list goes on and on and on. their right so we saw that nato you know united states and nato have had disagreements for a long time for its entire existence and we said you know obama was the one that really brought in that 2 percent cap so i think the instincts are sometimes actually quite on point but those outcomes well you know what do we do with us we have all these problems china 5 g. nato needs to get its act together do we just blow these things up that's the trump

response that's the trump outcome and i think critics would say biden would certainly say ok we have these problems but maybe we should just blow them up and start over maybe we should work within them and that i think is where the real difference of opinion but it's not a blow it up i mean it's that that that threat that threat that is how boring. that causes people to act and do exactly what previous administrations like the obama administrations just failed to accomplish i mean is that is that his tactic is that the right of the day oh yes if there's an international game of poker everyone's playing he's just all in every time and no one knows how to play that way so he is definitely by resetting the rules achieving something. so we're going to leave it there now for one second let me hand you over an hour to follow what has other stories at this hour.

but austria has declared 3 days of national mourning after 4 people were killed in a shooting rampage in the capital vienna a gunman opened fire at multiple locations in the city center he's been identified as a 20 year old sympathizer of the so-called islamic state militant group police have arrested more than a dozen suspects in the hunt for possible accomplices of the killer. in erie quite on the streets of here as the city woke up to his sense of dread. i did not sleep i feel for i still feel the panic. really nervous forit i live in the neighborhood next to our from there you could hear a lot. police have regained control over the city center after the dramatic shooting on monday night chance was about staying cool condemned what he called islamistic

terror attack. it's been untrue it was an attack out of hatred out of hatred for our financial values out of hatred for our way of life out a favorite for our democracy people are equal in rights and dignity. but one thing is clear we will not be intimidated by the terrorists. until monday austria had been spared large scale terror attacks motivated by religious extremism called urge his country men to remain united in the face of this new threat. we must be aware that this is not a conflict between christians and muslims or between austrians and migrants no this is a fight between the many people who believe in peace and those few who want war. the 1st gunshots rang out shortly after 8 pm the gunman was killed in the ensuing fire

he was later identified as a 20 year old man with both austrian and north citizenship he was jailed last year after trying to join the islamic state in syria he was later released. the police are knows with going through videos sent in by eyewitnesses to determine if he was a lone shooter. the video so far gave no indication of a 2nd perpetrator however since the revelation has not yet been completed we cannot finally say how many perpetrators are actually responsible for the crime. and. chance the courts went to the site of the shooting to pay his respects to the victims declaring $3.00 days of national mourning. let's take a look at some of the other stories making news around the world the president of

ivory coast. has won a controversial 3rd term in office the election was boycotted by the opposition to set up a parallel administration have been deployed outside the home of the main opposition leader growing fears of post-election unrest. argentine soccer star deal amount of owner is to undergo brain surgery for a blood clot the 60 year old was taken to hospital on monday for tests after feeling unwell or done as doctors says the procedure is a routine operation if all goes well he could be home again in 48 hours that. britain has raised its terror threat level to severe its 2nd highest following attacks in austria and france severe means that an attack is considered highly likely the u.k. home secretary says the decision is a precautionary measure and not based on any specific threat to the.

well that's all for now back to our u.s. election coverage and. you're watching it every special coverage of the u.s. elections the early results have been coming in from central and eastern states with both candidates claiming elec to college votes though there is not yet been any major upsets over turnout is expected to be huge with more than 100000000 ballots already cast in early and absentee voting all that puts this election on track to easily surpass 2016 votes during numbers. and one of the big controversies of this election has been donald trump's war on mail in voting which he claims without real evidence will lead to massive voter fraud with the same the absentee ballots break all records this year because of the coronavirus pandemic but just how secure is vote by mail to some scada reports.

it's one of the president's chief concerns and a favorite target mail in voting universal mail it is a very days there is this fraud would draw it as every other thing because i have it in person and on twitter the president has been sowing confusion and doubt over the integrity of the election they're trying it again with this whole 80000000 mail in ballots that they're working on. sending them out to people that didn't ask for so what is actually happening all the pentameter has changed the way americans have voted this year a record number of people have voted by mail but president trump claims of rampant voter fraud that huge numbers of people who don't have the right to vote are trying to cast ballots without others are trying to vote twice but there's no history of that happening just to be clear entrust no voting we've been doing a very very long time in united states. fraud is extremely

rare in the united states the rules for mail and voting depend on where you live in the u.s. this year 9 states and washington d.c. sent ballots to voters automatically this is what the president has railed against . in more than 30 states voters could apply for a ballot to send in by mail in these 5 states in order to vote by mail and you have to give a reason why you couldn't vote in person and the pandemic alone was not reason enough well this right here is my absentee ballot and even though i've been voting from afar for years it isn't all that easy i certainly hope that my signature in here matches what's on record of folding it up felt a little bit like an art project and i hope that i take it and sealed it correctly well here goes. i hope i didn't make any mistakes but many people do and it can mean a ballot is rejected but this year my state and around 30 others are allowing

voters who missed a signature or didn't seal the on below to cure their ballots if i had done something wrong i could get a call or an email to let me know and i could correct my mistake and make sure my vote is counted. as america gets more and more used to mail and name this process becomes something that's more widespread and people know about we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to safely vote even in the context of the internet and while there's been controversy surrounding mail and voting this year election expert david backer has an important reminder i think american elections were remarkably well given some of the challenges we face any time a 150000000 americans do something at the same time there are going to be errors there are going to be problems that doesn't mean their system problems with election day upon us all that is left is for officials to make sure all those ballots count. well let's find out who has the latest results for you.

it is super close at the moment i'm we're keeping our eyes on a few states in particular i'm going to start with one big prize and that's texas traditionally a republican state but it keeps slipping back from joe biden to president trump my nerves are gone following texas at the moment but 61 percent of votes are in 50 percent to joe biden 48.7 percent don't trump actually in the past few moments i just checked it's actually still flipping back and forth but we'll be sure to keep you up to date on that one another big state of course is florida which is now president trump's home state of course he won of back in 201629 electoral college votes up for grabs there also incredibly close at the moment 91 percent of votes

counted fair 47.9 percent to joe biden 52 so to president from so it's looking like it may go to president for but the moment but let's wait and see because they've is really close there too another big prize of course ohio one of the more well. no we'll say swing states also very close in ohio 18 electoral college votes 62 percent of votes counted at the moment joe biden president joe biden is just ahead 51 percent at the moment and another big swing state of course north carolina and north carolina is a another pretty good prize 15 electoral college votes at the moment it's looking like it may tip in favor of joe biden he's just ahead and remains ahead but we will have to wait and see what happens because it is very close at the moment 80 percent of votes counted there joe biden ahead let's take a look now at the map of course more and more states are declaring a winner no real shockers at the moment it's the red states are sticking to the red

states at the moment in the blue sticking with the blue but we're keeping our eye on pennsylvania of course a big schooling swing state and of course joe biden's home state along with data where he was of course born in pennsylvania virginia has already gone as well to joe biden we're keeping our eye as a said before on ohio and then there michigan wisconsin those 2 swing states as well let's see what happens there there aren't a huge number of votes being counted there at the moment and over in the west arizona arizona is an interesting one because it has traditionally been republican but the democrats are hoping that it does tape in the favor of joe biden but will will also have to keep our eyes on that one because not too many votes are being counted there at the moment and nevada is another one but there has been some issues in nevada with regards to what time the polls are actually going to close in that state at the moment joe biden 122 college electoral votes president trump on

92 there's that number 270 keep going in your head we will of course be bringing you the results as they come in a lot of states have closed already and i would say my tips keep an eye on pennsylvania keep an eye on florida keep an eye on north carolina they are the big ones at the moment of course texas. back to like just the usual suspects there paul are all right to ruin a charity still here with me and william grew craft are in which you make of what these preliminary results reveal to you i mean while there are some interesting things happening how close texas is it cetera it's kind of shaping up to be a good old fashioned you know election like we're used to seeing since the 2 thousands with the same with the same fights for ohio north carolina things that obama dealt with so i think we may see. a very normal and not rebuke victory should joe biden pull one of these you know 11 states he doesn't need to

over perform or to pick up that many states to be trump but he may not have this mandate that i think democrats are really hoping he would have a sack of democrats obviously want to wishing for that man do i need it that doesn't look like it's in the cards i mean it's not you know it's a i you're not going to get me. a minute oh no no no no no no but but i take your point i mean i really do think this could just be after all of this talk you know we have to ask question how much is this just us in our media bubble and all the money they get spent on these elections that you know you know i just saw i think 538 the polling platform just put out you know 14000000000 dollars i think they're also counting conk congressional races as well but still $14000000000.00 on these races you want something for your money so you know we don't know how this nice going to end days and weeks comment etc all coffee as we've been talking about all night. but it could just be. you know what we always see we don't know and you know

it might be kind of anti-climactic and in that case probably in joe biden's favor but. yet style trump still has a chance to win and has the incumbent's advantage on that note to time for some more analysis on what this u.s. election means for europe and the world across the w.'s max hoffman. thanks layla and welcome everybody once again to our special news talk tonight we're bringing you the global perspective on the u.s. elections america 1st that's donald trump's guiding slogan when it comes to foreign policy but has it actually brought the u.s. any advantages or just destroyed the multilateral stop gags that brought peace and prosperity to a large part of the western world at least that's something we want to discuss with you again hot german politician foreign policy spokesman of i'm going to medical c.d.u. c.s.u.

group and he says unlike trump biden relies on transatlantic security projects and on western alliances based on values that's something europeans can work with and mr howard joins us today from berlin germany in the middle of the night also on the panel ambassador nealon deo former indian ambassador to denmark and ivory coast among other positions she says the trumpet ministration perhaps because it has its view and perspective on china has been much more forthcoming on bilateral defense relations and she joins us today from a bag near in india welcome we also have on the panel stephen wolff british conservative politician and former member of the european parliament and the progress that party ukip and here's his quote biden's policies are driven by increased state intervention akin to aggressive socialism this is a disaster for the u.s. and mr wolf is joining us today from winchester in the u.k.

so a truly international panel before we kick off the discussion let's hear from the man himself what he thinks good global policy consists of i'm talking of course about the u.s. president donald trump by the way here he is talking about germany. would they be happy if i didn't win yeah i think so a lot of countries would be happy you know they did a study that in germany they liked president obama much more than president trump well that means i'm doing a good job. so i'll put that question right to you mr hart would you like it if donald trump lost tonight. i think it's a very close race and. whoever might become new president of the united states we. peons have to state that in the mary kom people from both camps. have the opinion that to us it's delivering more to the vote in the last decades

then they get they got from the vote and did this is seen entree in the republican circles but also and some democratic surrogates and we europeans have to give an answer on that i think we have been interested in building opposite new iteration it's not going to make. sure we're going to make issues about alter and security issues and so sorry if i'm drawn to a corporation would you would you agree with the statement and let me rephrase the question would you agree that the relations with the u.s. were far from from great in the last 4 years and that you could hope for better relations of joe biden became president. i think joe biden believes in modular pro approaches to every challenge we have of the birds climate security economic. cooperation and i think this is the way of politics we jump in the europeans want

to go and we don't like the new york germany and all it took. us this is popular and therefore we appreciate the other approach of buy it's a better deal as you know trumpet ministration has been in favor of bilateral relations more than multilateral relations is there is something to be said about this approach. i think that that that approach actually seems in i would region in asia to have been superseded a little bit by the focus on building up and strengthening the plod which is of course if for no other country grouping of the united states japan australia and india and that has assumed a greater significance and that's partly to do with the fact that foreign policy i think everywhere including in europe and certainly germany as well is now being the

locus has become the focus of this has become china and china as expansionism its various activities are at the moment focused on asia on gaining dominance here so i think the trump administration has actually moved from purely bilateral relations with japan or australia or india to a more from multilateral approach at least in security and i'm saying very media has benefited from is that what you're saying so india has benefited from this approach from the trumpet ministration. i think as things out at the moment with the chinese constantly moving into the indian tatar tree in on the border which they defused to demarcate certainly india has appreciated be diplomatic support and the fact that right now there is a 4 navy exercise armed only with all the members of the modern action group inc

thank you bassett or mr wolf question to you let's stick with the multilateral versus bilateral approach to international relations do you think it's a good idea to undermine the world health organization in times of a pandemic as the trumpet in session has done. i think there would be 2 questions that will to kill the fundament 1st the undermining of the world health organization is purely on the basis that it was believed in the united states that the leadership of the w.h.o. had believed china in almost every respect of how the pandemic had began the treatment of it and were too slow in laying any responsibility on china not helping the rest of the world but in respect of the bilateral versus multilateral trade deals you have to go back to the united states people themselves the united states of the past 40 years have relied on multilateral trade obama is very strong

on aids but many areas of the rust belt of the united states are suffering employment issues and one of trump's key kohls was that he was going to bring back jobs which he has done do you those are the approach though on the international stage to do that again undermine exactly you h.l. in a time of the pendennis. well you question is you have to ask whether your president of the united states is representing the will receive representing the voters of his country and so his decision to move away from the bilateral trade. from multilateral trading arrangements to bilateral and that i was a master the day i mentioned also the quote and other areas of the united states changing the relationship between canada and mexico for example has brought success in bringing jobs and revenue back to the united states and that's what a president is supposed to do supposed to represent these people i think we'll time a little more about that later on because it's a very interesting topic but before we go on allow me to do this mr wolf is of

course one of the defining things during these 4 years was president obama's stance on nato so we need to talk about nato at least a little bit and i would like to do that right here we have a very telling sound bite about that you saw the president out of state you know really marked by the leaders of nato i did a know conference can you believe we have a president who acts like vladimir putin probably so you see joe biden there who is strongly in favor of nato as opposed to to donald trump and he's putting down the top close to autocrats as sure most of us here at least i think all of us would probably agree a bloody new putin is how does that feel being an ally of an administration that says it's sticking to the old alliances but where the president apparently has more

well love for autocrats like a like out of one like putin and even the leader of north korea mr hart. yes i have a trust to be frank with you it's a state's 100 percent behind to commitment off former presidents on nato we have small u.s. troops on european soil now than we had on the obama if they were trying to fulfill it's every proposal that obama did on in 2014 a nato summit and try to 16 nato summit therefore we have to not to blame us for not doing enough in europe in the nature of time spot was that in spite of the sanctions donald trump or because of donald trump. and i think it is a constant. also a demonstration if you talked with a. secretary of defense or. the state department they believe in this a nato operation and therefore i think it's

a white house didn't. question mark that botched it trumped it took some decisions that's. a long term perspective might weaken our security process where. she skipped to the i.n.f. treaty which was harmed by russia but there i think it was the wrong reaction of us to to step out of that treaty and he also skipped the their open skies treaty and 2 important treaty is so that to reduce the risks and military confrontation risk in europe and i hope that. the. u.s. administration will think about that and i'm sure that president biden. will find a solution how to replace potentially i am after 80 our open skies treaty pockmarked only. to take you know from the table you're mentioning a lot of different treaty is a lot of different construction sites if i might put it that way of the last years

and what does but i would like to come back to the overall topic of reliability because in international relations reliability is something extremely important and bassett or do you know do you feel like the u.s. in the situation has been reliable enough in its dealings with partners across around the world. well i would like to say the following i think that the situation is evolving nato itself has evolved and come out by making a statement towards china i think we have to stop having discussions in a vacuum we have to discuss them in the reality of the world and the reality of the war is that there is rivalry not competition rivalry between the united states and china instead in trade and in security matters but still don't. believe that doesn't the last remaining superpower in the world needs to have a clear path forward that can be calculated by partners and allies yes mccrae live

doesn't mean staying in the order group it means coming together on what is now evolving in an evolving security and trade situation in the world so to keep on hoping that the orient nato relationship will remain unchanged in a completely changed what i did think to me that's not realistic and it's not useful either i think the chances that the united states and european partners in nato will move together is much greater as big create the convergence on policies in asia on you know when i was a terrific guy i know because i don't have a lot of time passes i would like to ask mr wolf to do does he feel like the u.s. top administration has been a reliable partner in the last years well i think you're going as just said certainly reliable to nato is but more troops in there he's subsidiary strongly

against russia by supporting there isn't always a threatens to leave you know he always there are always these threats out there to leave nato and to leave the united nations at least parts of it. of course you cannot accept that change doesn't occur i'm people getting a mindset and one of the things about donald trump is he said that the organizations and all it is the way that we've done business over the last 40 years has become a bit more able it's become over reliant on the united states we're paying too much money he says and some change is necessary and i think he cites statements as saying we will leave so no organizations and he has done so is when the change has not occurred that suits the united states now that doesn't mean that he wouldn't step in if russia overstepped its mark and came into your you would see trump immediately putting u.s. troops on that support you're seeing there waiting for that and everybody else i'm sorry you have to interrupt you here but there is so much stuff going on today so i

leave it at that thank you for being with us and i would like to go back to remain studio here in berlin and layla iraq who has probably the most results for us thank you. rabbi. by going i thank you. here watching it every special coverage of the u.s. elections the early results have been coming in from central and eastern states with birth candidates claiming elec tural college votes though there's not yet been any major upsets voter turnout is expected to be huge with more than 100000000 ballots already cast and early in absentee voting that puts this election on track to easily surpass 26 to voter numbers. and here's some of the other election news coming in the republican senate leader mitch mcconnell has been reelected in the state of kentucky he's been a key and pivotal supporter of president trump trump told his campaign workers he

was optimistic but also cautioned that you never know losing is never easy voters meanwhile in georgia have elected to the house of representatives a republican who supports the cuarón conspiracy theory and a court in the voter has ordered some polling stations to stay open an hour longer following a republican led challenge. all right the secu now to washington d.c. to our bird chief that you know as poll in this last a commotion behind you will fill us in what's going on. so you know there was just an incident there was a masked man the running away from the police and everything was really quite so far no with what helicopters above was and neither that pretty much describes this is you ation in this whole country which we were traveling extensively and it doesn't need a lot then 2 things are exploding it's so dense and i've never seen the united

states so divided as i have ceded the last months here and this has it has a lot to do with the rhetoric of. president donald strummed and joe biden himself he tries to present himself. as a person who would be able to unite this country again and this is very much needed as we just experiencing here it just needs a little thing to happen then you then you have like this whole anger on the streets people shouting as for no more and more people coming closer to oz but the police seems to be in control and love you have to keep in mind you're just a couple of 100 yards away from the white house right behind me right in his skull thank you so much for that update where they here on the set are in charge really and william gulu croft in our remaining moments together gentlemen where are we at

. i mean i think we're on track to have what looks like i said before a very normal lection but under extremely abnormal circumstances and so when people are trying to pick up the lessons from this election specially democrats i hope it's less you know it was good to appeal to the center and i hope it's more let's really question the tactics of advertising of fields of not. on doors of all the things that this unusual election has really put to the test so we may be having normal results but under such unusual circumstances i think it can yield some real insights into how elections can and should be fought well some closing remarks from you what will you still be looking closely for in the continuation of this saying all night wisconsin michigan pennsylvania if biden can win them he has the election if he can if he struggles if we see what happened in 2016 where trump can eke out a win even if it's a technical win. from still has

a shot and we know that from the beginning and despite everything that's happened this year from starting with his impeachment all the way through the coronavirus the economic problems the social unrest himself getting coronavirus the death of ruth bader ginsburg and the replacement of the supreme court that the fight that was that ensued and his his own favor bill the ratings consistent polls with biden up you know anything can happen he he lost the popular vote in 2016 he didn't win a lot of states by more than 50 percent. this is really revealing what we've known for decades to be true which is us elections are a mess and they are not very fair and a lot of people don't really get their voices heard and if democrats do win this we said this earlier in the show voting reform needs to be on the top of their agenda . i really enjoyed our conversations this evening thank you so much for allowing me to lean on your knowledge has been an absolute pleasure thanks again and we hope

you enjoyed our special coverage as well lots more coming up with brant goff and christine wound up after a short break this is the job and our live coverage of the u.s. elections for and our views around the world as america decides. i suspect that the united states find that really there should comment because we are facing up to me here in costa rica we depend on stories for example how we really have. the frontiers opened again when it was barely i hope by in winds because with trump things are not going very well i hope that with biden's triumph relations with mexico will improve with. if he were elections in any other country we wouldn't even notice but the united states has agreed to political impact on colombia so in this scenario any election will affect us and he's going to involve us directly. affect that in the bible. and i thought it was biden he's trying

a very honest and direct strategy but as we as you've been understanding since less election 2016 that's not a way to go in america unfortunately because i think in europe we're more used to a direct serious approach and i feel like my opinion is american elections are getting more into the soap opera area. i think we'll win he won so surprisingly last time as well for many non ex-pats that's why i think he will win the election . of our given action is my go either way because the 1st time i knew that trump was a racist but they steal vote for him but as for now i think people really enlightened that guy who every season doesn't have a clue contrary to barack obama so i think you might go with this time you might. it's all done alex. is really really not. a good

president when it comes to. power here and those people. and how he treats. people in the u.s. it's what you. move for donald trump. i think the country was moved to almost like. american people we need to try joe biden who said i hope trump doesn't win i don't want trump to win because he has been hiding has really badly when it comes to managing politics corporate separation but any kind of scenarios that it appeared in the last one year. i'm expecting anything even a civil war anything can happen.

the way. election coverage that's come up. why aren't people forced to hide in trucks. muck there are many dreams of such the but there are many answers above. and there are many stories. the b.

w. made for minds. clips of the session for spectacular pictures. for nature. since their complete devotion to the left makes them the best wildlife photographers in the world. and. the instrumentation. and struck. 5 adventures. one. the preservation of our planet. is not the sinister part treason savings plan is it for. us it's survival.

starts november 6th on g.w. . you are live with d.w. this is our special coverage of the 2020 us elections hello to all of you around the world i'm burnt off and i'm christine one bill we are watching those key swing states tonight as america decides. president donald trump defied predictions once again and secure and that the full year is in the white house early results show the path to victory is open for democratic challenger joe biden but the race remains too close to call and could be for some time to go. but we are glad that you are with us on this u.s. election night it is 10 pm on the east coast of the united states some states have

already been called but patience is a must tonight early results show that this is still anyone's race and democrat joe biden is fighting to unseat republican president donald trump each have wins in their columns and victory is still possible for either side our team of experts in correspondents will help us maneuver tonight through the stream of result and i will be keeping you up to date as those results come in this of course is an election page with america into crisis mode the cold a pandemic is searching a stock political divide raises fears often wrists but turnout is said to be the highest in a century let's take a look at deadline and decision day for american voters. this stages are set for the us presidential election results with a counting of votes underway in many states are anticipating the outcome from black

lives matter protests in d.c. . to those waiting with bated breath in the big apple. chilling trump and biden supporters in miami. this election is expected to have one of the highest voting turnout in recent history even joining a pandemic indicating just how important today's vote is for the american people i voted for the greatest president in history donald j. . trump is doing nothing for us that he's going to have very thing more on the control than what. trump does loved as intensely as he is loathed donald trump has become the biggest issue on the ballot and tonight americans and many around the world will be watching how you react to their results when or lose . concession speech your acceptance speech. hopefully you will be only

doing one of those 2 and you know. losing is never easy enough for me. right joe biden is the man determined to turn trump into the loser his campaign through much of election day promising to heal america's divisions proverb. or rather approach. through work ready i'm going to her for her road spirits rose birds are. both contenders have presented the battle for the white house as a struggle for the country's soul leaving many in the united states. preparing more 1st storm then for an election party. voting day in america and we are at the big table tonight here in berlin to talk results reasons and repercussions to my left

is tyson barker transatlantic affairs analyst at the german council on foreign relations ties and also worked at the u.s. state department to my right tonight from the windy city and part of the election team stacey. good to have you on board tonight before we talk we want to crunch the numbers my colleague christine has the latest results. that is right brain more results have been coming in in the last few hours it's just gone for it. and let's have a look at how that map is shaping up across the country concede now as that times and starts shifting from east to west more color on that map everything that you see in solid red has gone to donald trump everything. has gone to joe biden and of course no real surprises at this stage in the game surveys how is covering up north dakota south dakota nebraska all of these have gone and then of course in the northeast the mont in new york the ginia as expected have gone to joe biden it's

now 0 in on that brace on a state by state basis and we can show you takes us right now 38 electoral college votes for texas and if you look at it from the percentage base you can see that donald trump is in the leads they you can see that 64 percent of the votes have been counted texas still very much in the game will give you the update as we go the next state because show you at this point in time would be its have 2nd period comes up for us ok ok so this is way the race is in texas at this stage and they gave or seem to be having a bit of a technical issue in terms of our graphics here but i do want to see if i can get you ohio. we've got a problem with our graphics i promise i will be back in a few seconds but now i had you know that a branch of the panel and if you will at date on the results as they come in our

christine thank you very much we're seeing is standing by in the united states on this election night in this poll our washington bureau chief she is in the u.s. capitol and all of her salad is in joe biden's home state of delaware let's go to his 1st good evening to you in his our talk to me a little bit about what you've been seeing there in front of the white house to not . look at me yes i'm standing in front of the white oh isn't the sink you for talking to me most recent so you see brenda it's getting crowded here we just had it is it. with the police and some protesters it was unclear what exactly happened but i think what you really experienced right know that a little something really can fire ob a big group it was very peaceful before we saw this one must a man running towards the white house followed by the police and then within less

than 2 minutes many many people came here shouted. some of them were shooting some fireworks so this pretty much describes the situation of the united states and as we see the results coming in and it seems to be a really tight race this is something we might have to witness over the next hours to come and maybe over the next days all over in delaware we are looking at a race that is so close to call i mean it really is a tight race if you will joe biden's supporters i'm sure this is not what they want to see at this stage they must be biting their nails right now. they certainly are brand there have been no surprises until no none of the big battleground states have been called either so it's been pretty much open until now everything and it continues to be a nail biter as you say there is a sense of nervousness you know right now

a lot of people are putting their hopes in this many people told us today at the polling station that this is the most important election of their lifetimes and that is also something that we witness when we travel the united states together with the news poll who's just reporting from the white house and we've spoken to tom supporter who sold them to people from the biden side of the political aisle and they all believe that in no matter what happens here tonight it is very important for them and for the future of their country. ines you know we're still waiting for major states to be called tonight talk to me a little bit of balanced the mood if we can in the united states after this marathon campaign that we've just been through. the country is divided in a way i have never seen before people kind of have lost the ability. to talk with each other other to relieve you know share their political stands and

discuss like the best way to bring this country back on track because i cope with 19 has hit the united states of america very very badly as many other countries as well and brenda's many of our viewers know there is hardly any social nets so if one loses his or her job or loses the health care many are losing their homes they have to move all if they get evicted so this is a huge crisis is which this country is facing and the big big one meeting question if i might say so is who would be the better person to help overcoming this crisis and it was really interesting as we traveled this country as justice mentioned from one coast to the others we spoke to trump supporters who said he's the only one

who fights socialism socialism which we for example has have experienced in cuba which we left to move to the united states and we don't want a joe biden and a comma harris had to take our freedom away and then of course you have democrats who say we needed change in the white house because the way donald trump conducts his politics the way he started a trade war with china and other. greece is not the way we can bring like our economy back because. business people need to reliability and what president trump did is quite the opposite so there is a deep deep do why it would skull was through this united states of america you know exactly what you have to ask yourself how united are these united states of america tonight in his poll in washington oliver salat in delaware to both of you

thank you we'll be checking in with you throughout the evening let's bring it back here into the studio and let's talk about where we are right now stacey let me ask you 1st of the what do you make of the results we're still waiting for florida for example and every other state that where the results are coming in it's still too close to call yet but what you can see is that. the leading up to this the past couple of days trump has been running like a man who's been looking at the polls and believing that and what we're seeing so far as the results trickle in is that he's been hemorrhaging certain groups that made him victorious in 2016 so white educated voters even some working class white women voters independents seniors so and these people live mostly a lot of them live in metropolitan areas so they're die 1st they're big. they are turned off by the rhetoric by donald trump and you're seeing that and that's why

there are so many states up for play that are not really red states that should not be on the radar like arizona like florida like north carolina like georgia and so while it's close and it's early these are some think this is something that has to travel the trump campaign you know. the demographics here are key right i mean we have actually fewer white voters voting fewer white voters without college degrees yes but the same time you know the idea that demographics is this to me has been a play that the democrats have made in many states for many years many actually decades i know from my home state of texas they say that this is going to be a blue state they were saying that 2002 it's 2020 it is still a red state every state. but it's close and it shouldn't be this close i honestly the demographic profile of texas is very similar to that of california so it should actually be much closer to

a blue state if some structural disadvantages for communities in texas is one of the reasons that it hasn't made the switch the other and honestly this is maybe one of the flaws that we're starting to pull out in the biden campaign is the mobilization of certain minority groups particularly latinos and latinas are obviously the heterodox group there are cubans cuban americans their venezuelan americans their mexican immediately clinton. she had no problem attracting them in 2016 but biden has had problems well she she drove up let me know turnout and that's why you saw some tightening in places like texas and arizona and north carolina and actually they invested heavily in trying to turn out those populations by messaging to those populations the biden campaign has not been as targeted on those those groups because he didn't want to open up a flight to other groups in contrast the trumpet administration campaign to their credit as we heard has been hitting this point of socialism quite heavily which

tends to resonate obviously with the cuban into this whaling communities that have experiences in cuba and with chavez and maduro in venezuela and have said oh my gosh there's connective tissue between biden and these regimes that we left. but nothing has really created that kind of. voter turnout that we would hope for the democrats would hope for in states like but i think all americans would hope for in states like texas north carolina among latino voters and we know that with the exit polls people have been asked what was most important for you when you were in to cast your vote and people who voted for biden said it was racial tensions in the u.s. number one people voting for trump said it was the economy. yes this is how huge the vitus between these 2 groups and this is why i was really puzzled by so many people who are saying they're undecided these 2 men could not be any more different

so i mean. let's see what happens but yeah that's right they're not going to do you know one of the big controversies of this election has been donald trump's war on mail in voting which he claims without real evidence will lead to massive voter fraud we've seen absentee ballots break all records this year because of the coronavirus pandemic but how secure is a vote by mail u.w. sumi so misconduct reports. it's one of the president's chief concerns and a favorite target mail in voting universal mail every day. is fraught with growing every of the 6. in person and on twitter the president has been sowing confusion and doubt over the integrity of the election they're trying it again with this whole 80000000 mail in ballots that they're working on. sending them out to people that didn't ask for so what is actually happening while the

pandemic has changed the way americans have voted this year a record number of people have voted by mail but president trump claims of rampant voter fraud that huge numbers of people who don't have the right to vote are trying to cast ballots without others are trying to vote twice but there's no history of that happening just to be clear and trust nobody we've been doing a very very long time and united states. is extremely rare in the united states the rules for mail and voting depend on where you live in the u.s. this year 9 states and washington d.c. sent ballots to voters automatically this is what the president has railed against . in more than 30 states voters could apply for a ballot to send in by mail in these 5 states in order to vote by mail if you have to give a reason why you couldn't vote in person and the pandemic alone was not reason enough well this right here is my absentee ballot and even though i've been voting

from afar for years it isn't all that easy i certainly hope that my signature in here matches what's on record of folding it up felt a little bit like an art project and i hope that i take it and sealed it correctly well. i hope i didn't make any mistakes but many people do and it can mean a ballot is rejected but this year my state and around 30 others. are allowing voters who missed a signature or didn't seal the on below to cure their ballots if i had done something wrong i could get a call or an email to let me know and i could correct my mistake and make sure my vote is counted. as america gets more and more use to mail and this process becomes something that's more widespread and that people know about we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to safely vote even in the context of the damage and while there's been controversy surrounding mail and voting this

year election expert david backer has an important reminder thank you no american elections were remarkably well given some of the challenges we face any time a 150000000 americans do something at the same time there are going to be errors they're going to mean there's problems with election day upon us all that is left is for officials to make sure all those ballots count. in making sure those ballots counted and making sure that we keep our count on the electoral votes if you look up on the corner screen here you can keep up with how many electoral votes each candidate has won as we go through the night so let's talk about. your 1000000 ballots in the united states is it a strength or a weakness of american democracy it's absolutely a strength because it makes it easier for more people to vote and the more people to that vote the more people that are invested in the democracy and what we're seeing from the president is absolutely unconscionable from a leader of

a country to try to undermine the vote by making people afraid to go to use what we've always done people have mailed in ballots for the a very long time so what he's doing a shameful and it's not just the mail in both voting that's shameful it's also trying to claw votes away from people well we saw in texas and harris county was the president was another republican group trying to resend 100. 127 you know that is a lot of people who cast their vote and good faith and look at what's happening and then in pennsylvania the president has levied several lawsuits against that state our common law so this is this is a problem america is in crisis and is what we're looking at tyson and the republican party winning as long as they can suppress the vote and the democrats winning as long as the vote is expanded well i mean i think that this has

been a story that's kind of been evolving on both sides there obviously the president's rhetoric has been set to undermine the confidence that the american public have in their voting systems the integrity of moving system and that's the 1st time that we've seen that that is right that is that is completely uncommon clearly and has been condemned by former republicans including former governor of ohio john k. sake among many others but the truth is is that if you look at the polling the overwhelming majority of americans a still have confidence in the integrity of their voting system and be those who are these attacks are resonating with who think that the president might try to be undermining their vote are trying to make sure our double checking to make sure that their vote is counted they're seeing is there a challenge to an absentee vote should i check should i make sure that my vote was actually received and counted should i consider voting in person i mean sometimes

of course in the kobe pandemic that puts people's lives at risk but they are asking what are the risks that i'm willing to take to make sure that i can participate in this process you know we've heard there really has never been there's not a history of voter fraud in the united states the elections have always taken place you know fear in free but there are the 50 states and each state has its own voting system isn't that too much of a good thing there's there's calls from people saying that we need to be you know in the national voting commission. in for example of the election i don't really think we need to change it to make it all just one way because the states vary so greatly what we need is for both groups to respect the integrity of the vote and we're not seeing that on both sides that's problematic even if people do can double check their vote i know that i did i live in a registered and a republican chicago suburb and those people know me by name now. who are waiting for a don't worry about it because of the rhetoric of this president and it's not just

the clock trying to call way of votes and making people feel like a lot don't know if i should go out because my vote might not count anyway it's also the idea that there is unrest so rounding the the out if he does not win well oh that there might be a problem i have people calling me for friends from all over the world who are asking me what is happening with the united states and i don't have a good answer but what about your ballot when you vote did you have any problems getting it and then sending it back and making sure that it was received an accepted well it was slow to it was emailed to me and i was slow to get a response and so i called and i said look i am registered i've gone through the process the voters abroad if i don't hear back from you you're going to hear from them and so that's how the process went and then there was this strange discrepancies in the packet you can use black or blue pen and then you get to the next page only black you must fold the ballot in the way that it was received but

my bill it was my ballot was sent by e-mail so it's like little things that i would not take so seriously but because of the climate of the united states right now i just want to make sure that there isn't some kind of trickery and that my vote. is the point isn't it you've got you've got so many of these details in 50 states with their own details that it actually it becomes a form of disenfranchisement because so many votes can be disqualified right i mean are you trying to use the idea of. irregularities that disqualify voters in any way creating barriers to the voting process is a damages the spirit of democracy i mean clearly both parties should be able to build a consensus around the idea that getting more people to participate in the electoral process is is desired and what we have right now and i think that this is not controversial to say it is a president who sees his greatest path to victory in raising the barriers to to participate in that process and the republicans have built in structural barriers

as well through gerrymandering and other processes that also disproportionately count some people's votes over others yeah and we haven't even talked about the electoral college itself and if that needs to be reformed or done away with or talk about the later us election is always a big deal both nationally and internationally but 2020 has been something else from the coronavirus pandemic to black lives matter protests america has had a rollercoaster of some would say a rough year. for president trump this election year was supposed to be great the best is yet to come but it didn't take long for 2020 to turn into something quite different. lives lost. jobs lost. a virus that shut down much of america. kovac 90 not the democratic hoax trump alluded

to. it's going to disappear one day it's like a miracle it will disappear. no god. and in the middle of a pandemic a black man pinned to the ground by a police officer who has his knee on his neck. minutes later george floyd is dead. america erupting in protest. bangar that yet another black person has died in the hands of police. actually getting by right now at times appearing out of control president trump promising to restore law and order by force. today i have strongly recommended to

every governor to deploy the national guard in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets. outside the white house the plan apparently in place is protest is not dispersed with tear gas. and rubber bullets. clearing the streets to enable trump and his entourage. a walk to a local church for a photo op. a defining image of 2020. along with this one painted on a washington street close to the white house. while the flames of racial tension have been burning across the country many u.s. states have also been struggling with another apocalyptic crisis the outbreak of wildfires. from the rocky mountains of

colorado. to california's wine country millions of a kid is have gone up in smoke. hundreds of thousands of people forced to evacuate. 2020 setting a record for wildfire activity in california alone. meanwhile coated 19 has also refused to die down. while deaths have continued to rise so to have divisions over how best to control it. the simple face mask taking on political significance. with donald trump mocking joe biden for choosing to wear one. i don't have i don't wear mesh like him

every time you see he's got a mask he could be speaking 200 feet away from him he shows up with the biggest mask i've ever seen or who are into walter reed hospital who are bigger and who are oh. just days later it's confirmed that president trump has himself been trying to the virus. he's given all this agenda and taken to hospital where he's treated with a cocktail of drugs. in a controversial move and while still fighting covert 19 truck pays a surprise visit to. forces who've gathered outside walter reed hospital. he's finally released but the virus has spread throughout the white house already told her. how many are 1st offered right thank. you but. in fact scientists believe this event is probably the virus super spread.

this ceremony in the white house rose garden where trump formally announces a meet tony barrett as his supreme court pick thank. that decision because of another 2020 show. the death of justice ruth bader ginsburg. the 87 year old u.s. supreme court john jay liberal icon. thank you now replaced by a pro-life conservative with a job for life thank. 2021 year of anxiety and one most americans would surely rather put behind them. forever coming up on the bottom of the hour it is 10 30 pm on the u.s. east coast you're watching special coverage of the u.s. elections and here are the latest developments early results have been coming in

from eastern and central u.s. states with both candidates claiming electoral college votes though there's not yet been any major upsets president trump is watching results from inside the white house with protests taking place just outside his democratic challenger joe biden is in his home state of delaware he had urged voters to cast their vote despite long lines at some polling stations saying there were lots of long lines. are that christie it has the latest results now for. i do brands and i'm going to sort of by just having us take a look at the geographical map of the country now just to get a good sense of where we are as you can see that map is starting to color up reading nicely over there for us as of course the time zone is shifting from east to west on everything that you see inside the trade has gone to donald trump everything inside of blue has gone to joe biden at this stage to look at that so

factor. and going down the middle of the country north dakota south dakota nebraska kansas those all go into the tram stop so to say as you said there has been no upsets at this stage new york virginia colorado new mexico these are all states that we did expect would go to joe biden but that it's break it down in terms of those places where we are watching the race on a state by state basis look at texas now $38.00 electoral college votes up for grabs there and we can see donald trump does have the lead over joe biden over there albeit from brady a small marginal percentage 69 percent of the votes have been counted in texas that's one that we will continue to watch we can also show you that the state now. and that would be the state of florida 29 electoral college votes up for grabs in florida it's been said that it's going to be very difficult for donald trump to make his way back to the white house if he doesn't secure this 191 percent of the votes have been counted and donald trump does have a slight the end of a biden in that state and so that is florida with $29.00 electoral college votes

and of the state we can show you is ohio 18 electoral college votes they have as ohio goes so goes the nation that's because ohio's voted for the window of every election since 1964 and we can see again trump in the need 51 percent to joe biden's 47 percent and of course 77 percent of that voters at has been counted in the states off a higher one most states for you and that would be arizona this would firmly be republican states but right now it could go either way and in fact with 70 percent of the votes in we can see joe biden a firm lead over donald trump almost 10 percent lead over donald trump 54 percent to 44 percent maybe 45 percent donald trump now let us show you what that means in terms of that magic number that we all watching tonight and that is 270270 the number needed to secure the white house as it stands biden firmly in the evil 131

points donald trump trading with 98 points in that all important electoral college votes that is the state of the race as it stands i will now hand back of a. man who has more on donald trump's wall of the mainstream media but in fact over to brant that's right thank you christine we're going to go to mark's now next is something we can all talk about of that is donald trump's war on the mainstream media. brant thanks brett and welcome everybody once again to our special news talk tonight we're bringing you the global perspective on the u.s. elections climate change is fake code 19 is fake the media is all about fake news so what is still real for the u.s. president and might the u.s. ever return to a fact based society after the elections that's something we want to discuss with our panel here that consists of laura who to sorry she is finished member of the european parliament some would call her far right part of the identity of democracy

group and she insists she is a conservative member of that group and the quote we have selected from her for today is donald trump should get the nobel peace prize in recognition of his endeavors to end the era of endless wars construct peace by encouraging conflicting parties for dialogue and negotiations as well as underpin internal cohesion and stability of his country and ms which is sorry is joining us today from puri in finland thank you for being with us we also have on the panel samantha ross former director of the office of international climate and clean energy at the u.s. department of energy under president barack obama and now energy security and climate expert at the brookings institution that's a think tank and the quote we have from her is the trump administration's decision to withdraw the united states from the paris agreement is a huge foreign policy blunder that will reverberate through our relationships with

our allies and she joins us today from todos santos in mexico thank you for being with us and finally we have this german politician of the greens right now serving as a member of the european parliament where he is a part of the delegation for relations with the u.s. and he says trump is sacrificing the biggest remaining wilderness to extract oil and gas that just stuns me mr boss is joining us from to go. germany in the middle of the night thank you everybody for being with us we have a lot to talk about that before we do that here's a reminder why the u.s. pulled out of the paris agreement which is supposed to limit global warming to a maximum of 2 degree celsius this century compared to pre-industrial levels look at judging how filthy it is look at russia look at india it's filthy the air is filthy the paris accord i took us out because we were going to have to

spend trillions of dollars and we were treated very unfairly when they put us in there they did us a great disservice 1st question goes to samantha gross miss ross is that does does the fight against climate change actually stand a chance if the u.s. don't pull their weight. it is certainly much more difficult to figure west doesn't pull this way if you think about how the paris agreement got done. and 2015 the united states and china got together and introduced their own nationally determined contributions their goals for the paris agreement and that really got the agreement going and got all the world's countries on board and i have to say i just completely disagree with president's tektronix reasoning in that each country picked their own goals they we weren't put it to sit here and inch to other nations we put out the goals that lift that we could achieve and so i really think he was just acting on us and permission when he made that statement i mean it's a sorry i would like to ask you a from a european perspective although you are

a fan of donald trump do you agree with his approach that seems to be not based on facts but on beliefs and quite frankly on populism. well 1st of all i'm not a fan i support donald trump but i am a fan actually and i sell for us all it's that's the fact 1st well i think that china will benefit from use naive attitude and grap. therefore i think it's very important. that we have properly imposed carpentaria for example and carper leakages leak it is a problem in europe because if we are to be shares then the business is will transfer their production to countries like china and that will accelerate increase the total emissions globally so if you want to have

a clean or and cleaner planet we have to do it by slee and not just being naive and too ambitious or as a panel what do you propose i'm creepily. well car carbon tax carbon tax is the one that actually is. see during at the moment i do is some research how we sit implement that one but that would be 11 of the thing that a weekend level the playing field for do you think that is something that could be actually done in the united states as a society that rejects in some parts of the scientific evidence of climate change. well the. trump trump's approach to the climate change is very dear friend and european union's or biden's. trump

rather lacks added 200 kya lace and the way it deals with in wire meant or climate and. energy policy is based on for energy independence and safeguarding that chops and that's something you said some things that i understand right now i would like to bring mehad loss into the discussion how much is the current us administration hurting the planet well certainly it is being dependent a lot because the pulled out of the paris agreement and not not on the desk there's a lot of other and by mental issues that that are stake in terms of also biodiversity just let me i think would put one thing right and i think the european perspective on this is really different we have. a lot off. discussions in the european union currently how to best tekel the climate crisis but it's clear there

is an agreement to really step up the ambition and this agreement is why we will probably have all of the heads of states unanimously agreeing on. increasing our climate target by 15 percent and it's also poland and the czech republic so the european union is really. taking the climate crisis serious we're trying to be in line with science and that's very different to what we see from the united while from the current president ultimately not it's not just president but it's not different from him from everybody in the united states of course to be fair right here and let's take a listen right here to what joe biden said on climate change and global warming. climate change climate warming and global warming is the next a sense a threat to humanity we have a moral obligation to do with it and we're told by all the leading scientists in the world we don't have much time we're going to past the point of no return with

the next 810 years. so samantha gross in mexico at the moment what does the next administration no matter who leads it needs to do to use this window of opportunity this very small window of opportunity that is left according to joe biden. well we need to get back on on the train of dealing with carbon emissions and we're doing a lot right and that's true around the world the electricity sister system is decarbonising and that's because renewable electricity has gotten a lot cheaper not great by the sort of overall formula is decarbonise the electricity sector and electrify everything you can but you can electrify everything so we need to work on the electricity sector and we also need to but soon after and into things like transportation industry that are going to how realistic do you think that these things are given the current climate in the united states. you know something i'll say about the united states is the average

person in the united states cares a lot more about climate than donald trump to us i don't think that his fears are particularly representative of the united states or even particularly representative of the entire republican party you're starting to see politicians on the united states right republicans who are beginning to talk about climate to be i mean to talk about things like a carbon tax and of ways to do this in ways that that align with their skin conservative values and so i would be delighted to see it during a by the administration us have a discussion about how to achieve these goals and conservatives and more progressive talking about this and i think we can get there because i think donald trump represents the majority of the american people a misfit to sorry to the latest polls on election night the thing that the u.s. electorate cared most about when casting their ballots was the economy do you think that in our current environment with climate change catastrophic changes on the globe these are the right priorities. first of all i would like to comment.

what was said before here. about the green deal green deal that when we are talking about we have to do something in her early we have to you have to just do it now and nothing to think about it too much that means that means like green deal in the european union is not green or a deal i mean a nuclear power is not getting green funding so there's sometimes there's not logic in the green deal ok but do the biden biden wants to close american oil industry which still creates a significant added value to the u.s. g.d.p. and there is no way that biden can replace existing jobs with windmills or solar power she has and he has specifically said that he does not plan to shut down the u.s. islander stree that's certainly an argument that trump has put forth against him

but it's just simply not true it will phase out over time as will the oil industry everywhere but he has not said that. and if i may add is that he had and such and it's true that that if a man and it is certainly true that if we are investing now in this time of economic crisis into green transformation into rooftops into windmills that's actually much more labor intensive it creates much more jobs than we see in the fossil industry so it's smart for the economy and smart for the environment to invest in just green transformation at just very moment and so yeah it was it would be actually very smart for joe biden to actually go in this direction invest into renewables into the transformation because it creates more jobs than force an industry. i would like to take just on another topic and sort of sorry sorry about that because we don't have that much time so many things going on tonight i'm sure you understand is when we talk about fake news and other world and global phenomena

and we have to deal with another very important problem that has much more immediate effects at the moment is the current pandemic i think it's safe to say that the president has always had a very optimistic outlook on coal with 19 that so far has not materialized short reminder right here so we're going to thank you very much we're going to quickly end this pandemic this horrible plague that came in from john and they should have stopped it and we're not going to forget what they did we're not forgetting at all you know i'd signed a great trade deal with janet. so coburg 19 obviously something much more tangible and something more immediate than climate change ms gross is this the final proof that you need some kind of scientific qualification or at least you need to respect science in order to govern a country. i think you certainly should respect finance to govern

a country i think that goes without saying and i just hope that voters recognize that this how we got here was the fact that we didn't take science play and hopefully that will change how they think about their votes going for heart. and i would like to put the next question to ms which is sorry right here do you how do you feel the u.s. has handled the pandemic when you compared for example to germany or europe as a whole. well if i compare it to finland well the u.s. is not doing very well but of course the small country we have. 5000000 people but is still a large country almost as large as germany. italy has not done well at all well it's well it depends on the country but this is a very. there's a seriously i specifically the part where trump says this will be over very soon there will be back scenes available very soon large doses of them and generally

having a very optimistic to say the least outlook on the pandemic is that something you think is the right strategy to have in the face of such a pandemic. well. of course we all want to be optimistic but until we have the vaccination we we don't we don't know how it's going to work and what's going to happen we. don't know enough about this virus and i think that you suggest seeing it what's going to happen and i feel those who have lost their family members or relatives sound those who are lost that business is i mean this is a trap a terrible thing miss a bus do you feel like. at this point where we can't really say who's going to win yet because it's a very close race that corona will be the topic that cost donald trump the presidency. well it certainly does and many things that actually will

were making news the presidency and the handling of the koran not pandemic is one way that shows that he's not taking science serious that he's not listening to his advisors but i think there is so much more there is the racist comments from him division every politics their. lack of like that in hoss ability of his personality to bring people together. and and i really hope i mean fought for the u.s. and for the world that we will have a different leader because we needed for the world as well we needed because we have huge challenges ahead of us the climate crisis the biggest one but the. coral not crisis it's now the immediate one that will not be solved by nation states themselves but it will be solved when we work together and that's what's needed in the u.s. and on the globe and such so you know and just maybe if you're going to take you

right now you're painting basically the picture what will happen if biden wins what's your outlook on the world on the pandemic on climate change if trump actually pulls it out again. yeah that's what i mean. i am still hoping that this will not happen but a miss was set be fall for that i think the time classics will be much harder still hoping i mean in the u.s. so there are states that have a lot of competence to also act on the kind of crisis california is doing very well in this regard but without a federal government acting on it it will be difficult because the u.s. is one of the biggest clue trusts in the world and so with you with the european union acting on it and also we see that china is taking it more seriously but that it will not be afraid we're going to have to leave it here we are running out of time as i said before so many things going on but i think you got your point across

thank you everybody for being with us tonight it's not over election night and with this i headed over to our main studio here in berlin and brant goff who has updates on the u.s. elections. thank you max you are watching the w.'s special coverage of the u.s. elections right now the electoral college vote tally stands at 118 for biden 105 for donald trump early results have been coming in from central and eastern states with both candidates claiming electoral college votes as we said there's not yet been any major upsets to report president trump watching results from inside the white house tonight with protests taking place just outside on the other side of a brand new since his democratic challenger joe biden is in his home state of delaware he had urged voters to cast their vote despite long lines at some polling station.

and here's some of the other election news that's coming in voter turnout is projected to reach its highest level in over a century in the u.s. with more than 100000000 ballots cast ahead of election day republican senate leader mitch mcconnell has been reelected in the state of kentucky he's been a key supporter of president trump voters in georgia have elected to the house of representatives a republican who supports the q a non conspiracy theory and facebook and twitter have rushed to take down faults post by trump's supporters claiming irregularities at polling stations all right let's take this now to our washington bureau chief he is standing by outside of the white house tonight good evening to you. there's been a lot going on where you are tonight has been a lot of tension in the last hour or so what's been going on. right

the more results are coming in the though the the denser ikes. a situation gets here we saw some people running away i don't know if they've stolen something or not that was a little bit unclear to look as if they picked something up from another camera team they were wearing masks the police followed them and within a really minutes we had a huge crowd standing here shouting some shouting some fireworks were thrown and this prend kind of shows how explosive the situation is here in the united states that's exactly what we experienced during our road trip people are so angry it's so little kind of rationale in the discussion so this is what we experience going to be experiencing here just a couple of 100 meters away from the white house and a mission or if we look at where the results are white now it's looking like. the

election may come down to a couple of states as we've been saying for the past few weeks arizona pennsylvania michigan and wisconsin is there's key swing states are going to decide this election. it looks like it brendan i have to say i was here 4 years ago and it starts feeling a little bit like that in the beginning we remember it looked better for then hillary clinton when the metropolitans the big cities are getting counted but then when the more rule places of this country are getting over and we get the results from the more ruled places then the republicans take take a kind of the lead in this is exactly what is happening here and if biden is not able to win wisconsin michigan ohio pennsylvania it's going to be really hard also florida will be very important as will arizona and north carolina so it's coming

closer all right in his poll outside of the white house for us in just think you very much. well apart from canada the biggest ally that the united states happens is right here europe the european union let's bring in our brussels correspondent terry scholz tonight to talk about this relationship terry what does brussels the e.u. make of american democracy tonight this election. well brant i think everyone is watching the elections with a lot of trepidation not just about what results may come out of it but how the election unfolds and just as in is was explaining there's so much tension that we even feel it on this side of the ocean you know normally on presidential elections and this is the 3rd i've spent in brussels there would be a big party a big celebration a big overnight watch out at

a hotel here and i think that you know you can feel that the fact that anybody who still is up watching at this time of morning is doing it alone in their homes this sort of adds to the feeling that everyone is very worried about what's going on in the world and what's going on right there in the united states it is it safe to say that there is a genuine concern genuine fear there in brussels of trump 2nd term i think there will be some who might say that that would be fear you know when we talk about the feeling about the trump administration in the european union and in nato there are some differences it's not fair to say that that all countries would wish for a bite and bite in victory for example you've got the eastern european countries like poland and hungary who who openly say they would prefer a 2nd trump administration that's more the case in the european union than than on i'm sorry that's more in the case on the nato side than on the european union side

where the relationship has has been more intense you've covered nato for a long time down you know what your book insiders say about the u.s. administration is there a fear that another 4 years of donald trump would mean the beginning of the end of neda. there are these stories that have come out including just in reconfirmed in the last couple of weeks that that president trump has said that he would like to pull the united states out of nato and of course you never know what a 2nd trump term would mean he may have may feel less restricted by the need to run again and so if he truly wants to pull me pull the united states out of out of nato he may try harder on the other hand the 1st time he started talking about these kind of things congress put a stop to that so we've got to be looking at those races as well and if congress you know stays in democratic hands then president trump will not have the ability

to do that and in fact nato is supported on a bipartisan basis there in washington but i think that there are a lot of concerns that he may be less restricted this time around and perhaps try to try even harder to push through some of those those ideas that might be on the the edge there we know that donald trump responds best to personalities that he feels that he can connect with let's look at the e.u. and nato personalities we've got the district attorney general. and you've also got the european commission president funder line of these 2 who would you say a man is the best connection to double draw. well no question secretary general stoltenberg has has been truly the trump whisperer he has managed to keep president trump on inside the organization for one thing but by sort of playing to president trump's line that it's it is him personally who turned around

defense spending although that actually happened before he took office secretary general stoltenberg has managed to to have president trump praise him repeatedly even if that means sitting next to him wall while trump sometimes spins a few yarns i think commission president fatherland hasn't had the chance to form such a strong relationship with trump she hasn't been in office that long. that will means to be seen whether that relationship could be strengthened if president trump wins a 2nd term i think the european union would inevitably be looking even in a 2nd trump administration to turn that relationship more positive i mean it can't get lower than president trump saying that the e.u. was formed to damage the united states yes we remember that closed it's been repeated many times. in brussels tonight thank you. all right we are about steam minutes now from the top of the hour you're watching

t.w. news this is our special coverage of the u.s. election the day american decides will bring you live results and analysis of a race that is still too close to call but 1st here are some of the sights and sounds of u.s. election night u.s. democracy. and. the. coming. couple of other. delhi. belly. and.

i'm superstitious about it the welcome thing from happening this predator i am however always wrong and but i'm hopeful the things that are happening. bode well for the base that has been supporting policy you know i'm not thinking about a concession speech or acceptance speech it. hopefully will be only for doing one of those 2 and you know. winning is easy losing is never easy for me it's not. just u.s. president don't trump there and joe biden on this election night it's 8 pm on the west coast. of the united states polls are now closing in the western time zone

results have been streaming in from eastern and central states with both candidates claiming electoral college votes and tight contests are unfolding across several swing states voter turnout is expected to shatter records more than 100000000 ballots have already been cast and early in absentee voting that puts this election on track to easily surpass 2016 voter numbers in fact the best we've seen in a century. our christine has the latest results now. i sure do and let's have sort of by looking at our geographical map of the day to get a sense of how that's all playing out into color so let's see it over they of course those results as they have been coming in we can see now everything that you see firmly in solid red has been taken by donald trump everything in sort of blue has gone to joe biden everything that sort of shaded in the light shades these states

that the associated press is projects in will go either way of course when that final tally comes or so for example it takes this is widely expected to go to donald trump and we can see on 10 of the expected to go democratic least that's what it looks like right now provisionally we can call it yet at this stage so this is how this map is sort of coloring up we can see it getting closer to the west coast where we expect more polls to be closing in the coming hours not just break that down for you now on a state by state basis and we can start off with florida a key prize tonight this is one that president must win if he's going to go back into the white house look at that we have 91 percent of the votes in and donald trump does have a slight lead over joe biden over there 51 percent donald trump to biden's just shy of 48 percent i have a now the state to show you and that state would be ohio 18 electoral college votes over that now ohio so who's and so goes the this is the race of the nation

basically that's because this state has come to be projects of the wind correctly for the last number of years and this is 1964 basically and the last we're hoping that joe biden is hoping that the blacks and out will come through in his favor over there then we also have arizona this is one state that before this we would have just thought this would be a republican state that things are changing in the state it is a false growing state the demographics are changing there is that latino vote that biden camp is hoping will come through for him but with 73 percent of the votes counted we can see biden with a a strong lead 58. 4 percent over there to donald trump's just of a 45 the same so that is arizona electoral college votes 11 of them that is a very big prize too for the night and then finally because show you north carolina the purple state would have cut rate well it could be right now it looks like it is going red but bear in mind that it will that's 92 percent of the votes but still

a tight race and you can see that's what's coming through as we've been looking at these states very close tight races in these swing states now of course this all boils down to that magic number of the night that is 270 the number of electoral college votes needed to secure the white house and we can see biden in the lead 135 trump trailing 108 but we're still early days meaning most states due to come in and to close finally but that of course is what we're watching c.n.n. i'm going to head juvenile to brant yeah and then at the table thank you very much christine you're you're mean you definitely are preaching the gospel there there's a lot of purple on that map today tonight let's talk about that a little bit here where are we mean we don't work for states that are looking to be the most important arizona pennsylvania wisconsin and michigan michigan yes so for. vice president biden there are many paths to the white house he could lose florida tonight and still have a great chance of winning the white house if trump loses it's

a done for him as my grandfather used to say it's a done deal so basically what what but it needs to do is hold on to the states that hillary won and then reclaim the blue wall of the upper midwest michigan wisconsin and pennsylvania he's been doing well steadily and michigan and wisconsin since he announced and pennsylvania is close but he feels like he can flip that he was there today and scranton where he was where he was born relating to people working hard to kind of get the rural vote out and he did he's doing better he's over performing there better than hillary did in 2016 he's able to relate to working class voters more than she was able to and like i said the metropolitan areas respond to joe biden he's more he's a candidate that attracts more of a diverse tent. this blue wall it's it's important isn't it i mean without the blue

wall you don't have a blue president it's not just important i think it's decisive for both candidates i mean you know this discussion that we've been having for the past couple of months has involved a lot of kind of scenario flourishes you know what if biden wins florida or what if he takes the whole south georgia north carolina but the truth is the tipping point is right there at that blue wall for both candidates and those 3 states that you just mentioned that one donald trump victory and 2016 are also going to win one of these 2 candidates the victory in 2020 most likely and the process challenge that i think is going to be there for all voters and for the candidates themselves is that in 2 of the 3 states pennsylvania and i believe it was constant they couldn't start counting absentee ballots until yesterday so that means there's going to be a delay in the final tally. results tally which will drag this out a little bit what that might mean because most of the absentee ballots at least in the polling have shown that they support. joe biden more than donald trump is.

swing towards joe biden at the end so if there is a pretty narrow gap where biden is already in the lead that could augment that lead in some other states like like north carolina you have the opposite effect where a lot of the absentee ballots and early ballots were already counted and a lot of that was already in the democratic column so we're seeing either a narrowing to between joe biden and donald trump or donald trump pulling ahead at the end and i think we saw that with with north carolina just now and we're going to see it probably in some other southern senate in what about ohio. presidents have to win ohio if they want to win the white house it's been that way christie was since the 1960 s. what is it about ohio well ohio is to use a phrase kind of the soul of the nation in some ways it has it has been the basically the industrial heartland it has several metropolitan areas cleveland

cincinnati it borders the south you know it's right on the kentucky line so you've got appalachian a little bit it's a real cross-section and it's a large state it's a midwestern state it carries a lot of the identities that you find in the united states that said the population has been changing it's gotten older it's got whiter. remains a working class state and that has tended to be trending republican particularly under tom from so it is not necessary to what maybe this will be the the election that breaks that spell. since 1984 but it still captures a lot of those american identity so you're can imagine if the campaign is looking at that state and thinking that they're going to lose it they're probably shaking like jell-o. in a high school cafeteria right. yeah but this goes back to trump turning off voters that put him in the white house those voters that in ohio in michigan in wisconsin

and pennsylvania who has trouble tell you they're not there the normal fit for him educated white people. women so what he's looking at now is just to see if he could eat out just enough votes in those rural areas because the metropolitan areas have essentially turned their back on him all right stand by we want to go down and talk about the deepening political divide in the u.s. a growing presence of armed militia groups on the streets there is heightened fears that violence could break out after election day w.'s army in essence has this report. these images are fresh in the minds of many american voters. news of destructive protests and violent right wing backlash dominated headlines for much of the summer and early fall. i've been traveling the country and talking to voters and if there's one thing americans expect in november more

than a decisive victory for either joe biden or donald trump it's violence that goes for biden supporters and all these different extremist groups and militias i'm concerned for people safety you're not going to let up peacefully as well as trump supporters i think if by lose there will be violence there's going to be a civil war. yes i believe we're going to destroy the we're not going to put up with you're going to put up with me it's going to be a civil war we don't do this monitor seem to try to are going to try to do or think it's not going to happen british stand up for what we believe we're going to do the american way but is this just talk or is the prospect of post-election chaos a legitimate concern. one of the reasons people are talking about this is because it is happening and the data does show that there has been a rise in the number of terrorist plots and attacks in the u.s. in 2020 about 2 thirds of them through the 1st 8 months were caused

by white supremacists and far right far right extremists in about 20 percent by anti-fascists in arkansas and other violent. but it's not just analysts who are discussing the possibility of disorder in november and beyond law enforcement has already begun to prepare conversations across state local or. federal agencies f.b.i. our justice national counterterrorism center there is. about tension for violence. actually after the election and also increase their. risk by. f.b.i. and attrition. it's not surprising that many americans are uncertain of how donald trump will act if you lose the election he's been asked that very question and

refused to give a clear answer you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transfer for all of our after the election. is trump just dodging the possibility that he could very well lose to joe biden. really implying that he would refuse to accept the outcome of the election. when pressed another time on the peaceful transition of power from said that yes he would allow biden to take office if you want but some analysts say that trump is trying to gain an advantage by casting doubts on mail in ballots and other common voting practices. that electoral system is. not some of the other was. rigged and that the only way for the system to demonstrate its legitimacy is for. dangerous. social media companies like twitter and facebook have promised to clamp down on calls for violence after the election like the law enforcement agencies

they believe a peaceful transition of power will require all hands on deck. the threat of militias in the united states let's go now to my colleague oliver salim he is in joe biden's home state of delaware all over you have reported on some of the militia groups that have sprung up around the united states as a matter of fact you highlight in your new documentary the radical states of america which our viewers can watch on our you tube channel i highly recommend that you and i talked about your documentary on the day recently talk to me a little bit about what these people have told you why do they think that they have to arm themselves why do they think that violence is imminent. well among those militia groups brand there is a there's a fear that there are values are under threat that is basically the rhetoric also that president trump has put forward in

a very bitter campaign and as you know he refused to condemn these groups they feel very much emboldened and there are several scenarios where we could see what extremism experts called spontaneous violence where you see people taking to the streets armed with guns perhaps not even with a bad idea because they want to protect property and we've seen a lot of violence on the streets also called in cause in all fairness by black lives matter activists or perhaps even more still radical lists of the left side of the political aisle and what happens then in situations like a no show was calling someone a young 17 year old trump supporter took to the streets initially to defend shops from looters perhaps then it comes into a situation where he shoots at demonstrators of black lives matters and kills them and extremism experts and i've spoken to some of them for that documentary very

concerned that this could repeat under certain certain circumstances no wonder did a officials at the pentagon repeated. very belief or pretty to the fact that that active u.s. soldiers will not be used to keep the peace in the united states post election that being the case what have you heard in terms of keeping the peace i mean are the police in the u.s. are they prepared to deal with the militias. they certainly are brant in the end these militia groups are a very loud group they they stir up chaos and of course people are afraid when they see a large group of people heavily armed which by the way as you know is protected by the constitution to go out and carry your arms in many states of the united states openly including rifles and so on and so forth but we shouldn't forget this is

a fairly small group of people now whatever happens tonight if president tom for instance is and certainly if he leaves and then this result will be turned around by mail in ballots that is a very typical situation where we might see some violence on the streets but in the end of the day they will not be able to turn any election results around it we should not forget that and that is also something that that constitutional scholars that i've spoken to have. confirmed and told me that no matter the outcome here as long as the votes are counted this is going to be what matters and not what happens on the streets also with regards to militias of course it could be chaotic what we're going to see if that scenario becomes true we've also seen in the united states african american militias arming themselves in georgia an all black militia was marching last month through the state we understand that gun sales among

african-americans have skyrocketed as they have among white americans it really does come down to the fact that guns are almost as plentiful as sunshine in the united states. that has been the truth for a long time brand you know but since the penned them a gun sales have skyrocketed that's very much true for all kinds of reasons and then of course with this uncertainty of the pandemic and the economic uncertainty but also with violence on the streets people even more felt the need to take to the guns and we've seen in that report in the documentary one of the protagonists of black lives matter activist bought a gun because she felt threatened by militias in her hometown of louisville kentucky and you mentioned black militias that actually have a very opposing views and as the white militias all militias follow different

ideals the black militia that we followed and met in washington d.c. was called the n f c militia and they dream of an all black state so they're sort of separatists also arming themselves so there is certainly a certain danger of course simply by the fact that there are so many guns around and in the hands of civilians of course in the united states right oliver shallot in delaware tonight all over thank you very much. all right want to bring you back here into the studio and just to update you in terms of electoral college votes joe biden leading right now with 200 in the magic number 270 is what you have to get if you want to be elected president of the united states so let's talk about guns in the united states you know in the last 4 years we have seen lots of school shootings for example there's been calls for gun reform time and time again but that is not at the top of any party huge concern that this election i know at least

for biden supporters it's coherent and they believe at least 90 percent 60 percent of them i believe they believe that you can't rebuild the economy unless you control it and you address it for transport. it's probably 5th on their list they don't believe that covert is an issue but if you're going to explain the the gun problem in the united states why and why is that not a burning issue on this election night i think that with guns it's something that's always coming up it's an evergreen thing and so we haven't had an attack in a while and then when one happens and it's in the news i remember last year when i was in singapore my brother in law he's a teacher and there was a kid with a weapon and because it had been a series of shootings across the u.s. they all thought that the child had a gun and so my brother in law was in a closet with a bunch of kids trying to wait it out texting my sister saying he loved her and the

kids and this was so profound and so big even in our family and then code it happened and then we kind of lost less track of it i mean is it the there's this competition of movements in the united states or is it that americans have become desensitized to the problem of gun i think there's a qualitative difference on the 2 sides of the issue so on the one side you do have the kind of there's a rally around the issue around a sandy hook or around and aurora colorado or columbine or all these kind of incidents that have occurred and then there becomes a political constituency for gun reform but for a lot of voters the right to bear arms is such a salient cultural issue that it always remains and that is always something that they're checking candidates on it's kind of like abortion for a lot of people that is a red line for candidates who are interesting to in control one of the things that he's always that way right i mean if we were to go back and look at us politics in

the 1950 s. the 1960 even the 1980 s. and ninety's with the ban on assault rifles the brady bill which came out a few of the attempted assassination of ronald reagan. but it because of the n.r.a. because of the kind of political ecosystem that it was able to create it. has become identity politics and because of that it has become a red line in the summer when we have these protests around the you know racial and social justice following the killing of george floyd there were protests in front of for example confederate statues which were countered by counter protest of the kind of quasi militias with open carry so i think that the use of guns to intimidate more for the other side to that they would say to protect and to provide a shilled or a wall of law and order is very present but the way that the 2 sides see the issue is quite different and i think that with the youth quake this is that the youth that's higher than and 2016 and

a lot of those young kids they're looking at the environment and they're also looking at gun. live let's kind of switch from power of weapons to the power of personalities trump in german chancellor angela merkel they have had a very rocky relationship these past 4 years where has that left us german relations w.'s. reports. even before donald trump became us president it was clear the relationship wouldn't be easy. now merkel what did she do she's destroyed i mean she's in the process of destroying germany with a migration time magazine i didn't even give me the man of the year the person of the year that showed up. that's why it's heading down the tubes. they gave it to a woman who has not done the right thing in germany it's not the one to well over

there that woman on the cover was in fact german chancellor and get america. and will to once trump did become president she congratulated him on his election but in typical american style she threw in a subtle dig. so it's moment when america germany and america connected by values democracy freedom respect for the law and for the dignity of human beings regardless of their origin what skin color religion gender sexual orientation or political views illinois in. order. this photo of medical facing trump at a g 7 meeting went viral seen by many as a perfect illustration of their report so was their 1st encounter when trump ignored america's suggestion to shake hands thank you.

thank you. one of the biggest sources of disagreement has been nato trump has attacked germany without pause saying it was not paying its fair share towards the alliance. germany as you know is very delinquent in their. payments to nato. and they're paying one percent in this supposed to be a 2 percent of the 2 percent is very low should be much more than that so they're delinquent of billions of dollars and this is for years the liquid. when trump treated racist attacks on this group of democratic us congress women openly condemned his actions. which is an even most of an achievement. i firmly distanced myself from the attacks and i stand in solidarity with these women . america's strength from my perspective lies precisely in the fact that people of

very different nationalities have contributed to the strength of the country. therefore these a statements that grown very much. to this impression of mine for. a strained relationship but also opposite approaches like on how to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and how to wear a face mask. now with trump fighting for a 2nd term in office and medical in her last year as chancellor it may soon be time to kiss goodbye the question is how soon. you know those are 2 very different personalities. is that the problem and you've got one you've got miracle she's the scientist turned politician you've got trump he's the reality t.v. star turned politician well she's clearly very cerebral very analytical she leads with her head you know sure lies on science relies on experts and he is emotional

populist you know he leads with emotion he leads with his heart i mean he leads with his gut maybe even to say and those approaches are in this case they just don't seem to work well together also because of the way they work themselves out in the way they govern and the way they interact internationally i mean it's interesting watching that picture of the g 20 and looking at all those leaders many democratic but also many autocrats on that stage and and populists like putin you know the united states in some ways and the international system is the swing state and. we are going to be making a decision today which way it's wales and for a country like germany they're going to be faced with a lot of tough decisions if if donald trump is re-elected because that is not going to be the ally that they had relied on for the past 70 years in she's seen a lot of president george w. bush there was broker bamma in with with these presidents it took

a while for her to warm up but she had a very close relationship with barack obama yeah in the yes she was she worked very well with him and so it wouldn't be difficult to imagine that she would work well with a guy who was number 2 joe biden. if donald trump were to be reelected i think that his foreign policy would be trump on steroids so whatever you think you've seen and you thought was crazy now. 2020 was nothing really and we know steroids are really bad for you especially your liver all right let's get the latest results mel someone with a very good livers my. she's got the latest results. that's right and i can tell you that a few developments have come through in the minutes before i came on and it's have a look at that map now we can sort of see it's firmly all colored up now in the last few minutes as i could say

a few key states have come through for joseph biden be can see washington oregon california that's a key one and you see how it's impacting the race in terms of the actual countries because california has 55 electoral college votes so you can see how that would be a big boost to joe biden at this stage but we've also had oregon with 7 electoral college votes new hampshire as well all the way back in the east with 4 electoral college votes as well as washington with 3 so this is the state of the race as it is across the country you can see of course a lot of through there as well let's break it down for you now on a state by state basis and the 1st state that we can show you is wisconsin with 10 electoral college votes now we know that in wisconsin this was a democratic state until 16 of course joe biden wants to take the state back we're just shy of 60 percent of the votes haven't come through there and is in the lead with 51 percent off that biden trailing with 47 percent of the vote the next state

that we can show you at this stage would be and i think. i can tell you about michigan that's right so again 16 electoral college votes coming through there joe biden is they with he's 43 percent of course trailing trump who has 45 percent off this result just about 46 percent but we can see there that it's shy of half of the votes having come through in michigan this is of course one of those ones that died and needs to win we've been talking about florida having to win that will biden really needs to win this one another state that he can show you at this stage would be ohio of course the crucial bow with the state so far this is how this race is playing in ohio donald trump in the need with 53 percent of the vote joe biden at 4591 percent of those results so at any point to this time we do expect that we might be getting for some results coming out of ohio if it goes the way it's been before this could be a crucial indicator for this election i do have one more states i believe for you

and that would be the state of pennsylvania we saw a lot of time a lot of money spent in the state by both campaigns really be can see how this race is shaping up let's see ok so 46 percent of the votes coming in look there just shy of 55 percent joe biden 42 percent of that foot so what's going to happen in pennsylvania well of the democrats in pittsburgh and philadelphia will they come through for biden or will that while rural vote hold true for donald trump again to 70 is the major number that we're watching tonight and it's see how that's coming through so you are seeing biden with that huge leap 209 and that's probably because of that california vote that's come through donald trump at 118 that is the state of the race branch just you. i think very much christine so let's talk a little bit about where we are right now i mean things we're getting in this place where everything is so tight that we're going to have to wait and wait and wait

until the ballots have been counted stays in so they taught me a little bit about where you see this being headed ok it's a pennsylvania for example they were talking about the lawsuits that the republicans are leaving against pennsylvania and part that had to do with how they were allowed ballots to come in so if they were postmarked by election day they had 3 days in order to come in afterwards and the trunk campaigned in like this but there was a ruling and said yes this can happen so we might not get final results from pennsylvania until friday so we're talking about patience there was constant in michigan were also slow to get their mail in ballots tallied they had to wait until election day so we're seeing tight numbers now but we're going to will most likely see if what the polls are saying is true a more of a blue shift as the numbers come in but let's take a moment to look at arizona because this is traditionally

a republican state and biden is on course to be the 2nd democratic president in the 2nd if he wins it a 2nd democratic president when it since 1900. a lot of changes here but what he really needs is that michigan wisconsin pennsylvania and if we think back to 2016 at a bell this time on election night. donald trump was the projected winner in ohio and iowa years not. at this hour the projected winner mused of too close to call what does it say then about his chances for reelection i mean clearly i think that the challenge run by joe biden even the trump administration campaign would admit it's a stronger challenge but there are 2 major differences from 20161 is turnout this is a vastly higher turnout level as you yourself mentioned the highest turnout since 100008 as a proportion of the population we had in some states like texas more than 100 percent

voter turnout before election day through absentee and early voting and the 2nd is this massive proportion of absentee votes which is just going to take a long time the capacity is not there to count them in many states and as as they see mentioned some states have narrowed the window in which those ballots can be counted so a state like florida which had a lot longer to deal with this to digest those absentee ballots is not the case in states like pennsylvania or and i don't know i think ohio might be similar but i think those 2 factors the massive absentee and the voter turnout or the and you mentioned florida still too close to call and fox is the only network right now that is calling it and they're calling it for donald trump. wins florida what does it mean for by path to do something in the battleground the fault line lies in this blue wall and you know the media narrative

coming into election day was that biden had so many paths to victory then that trump had one path to victory but the truth is that fault line is all along lays on the same on the same states and those states of those 3 states i think which are michigan pennsylvania and wisconsin there is a scenario where you could think that he could lose pennsylvania but when arizona and then win one electoral vote in maine and win one electoral vote in nebraska and then he could kind of get something together but the most realistic path is that traditional path it's not these kind of you know style points on the side yeah i know that there were predictions yesterday that by this time tonight we would know who would won florida and that's not the case now that's not the case. this 2020 election no we're still waiting to see how things shake out in florida yes we are definitely weighty. from american for american 1st to american renewal donald trump

enjoyed by they offer vastly different visions for america the w.c. museum was gone she has more on that tonight from washington. thank you so much of brant and a warm welcome to all of our viewers joining us on d.w. as you said we're keeping a close eye on results but we also want to dive back into some of the biggest issues of the selection season 1st and foremost the state of democracy the language of democracy just how contentious divisive that language of political discourse has become and we have a little taste of that for you let's listen in the north as yours is going to lift would you she was a loser who is on your list you. journalists i think. who are all right some of you might remember that that was an exchange between the

president joe biden at the 1st presidential debate so let's talk a little bit about the language and discourse surrounding politics and what that means for democracy and we have some guest joining us tonight with a european perspective around europe julie and brian is the global chair of democrats abroad she's joining us from prague a warm welcome to you we also have alexander of bins go with us she's a political commentator for the polish weekly shechita and the news website. and she's joining us from warsaw good morning to you as well and the fly and is the vice president of republicans overseas in germany he is joining us from berlin so i'll say good morning to all of you it is still night here but early early hours there thank you for joining us and this bryan i want to start with you there in prague now you have said earlier in the evening with us here in d w that you strongly disapprove of the language used by the president you think it is damaging to democracy how specifically do you think it has been damaging.

well if you look at his rhetoric he uses inflammatory remarks he calls out to white supremacist groups he interrupts people he he is a bully in his in his dial in his dialogue in his monologues he doesn't believe in reaching out and talking and listening to people this is not what democracy is is all about it this is what a bully who is trying to put into place and authoritarian regime is all about it's rhetoric that really models people like muesli need and hitler and he follows the models very closely in his rhetoric but was trying to have democrats really been effective in creating a counter narrative one of patience and decency it doesn't seem to really have come through. i don't disagree with that if you listen to the way joe biden speaks if you listen to the way carla harris speaks the truth we have leaders who are

measured in tone who listen who are interested in debate and listen to both sides and figuring out ways to come together this is what democracy is about you have to work and you know one side can't you say this is how it's going to be without listening to the other side and coming to a compromise and that is why we have we have these wonderful great debates for this opportunity. i. want to come to. plaistow mr fry and. may i remind you that joe biden called songs from president trump by recess i think this is the language calling somebody the which happened like all of congress years ago i don't think it's appropriate either i agree the president from crossing a red line and he shouldn't do that but his strength is to put very very complex situations into simple words. i took what i just find.

time to do the same and didn't talk very politely both the president. and also chose tonight as you said at this point. a high you know more people voted like 4 years ago and currently there isn't any way even currently obviously president reached with this language up to a certain point of course reach the masses and reach the republican voters but the question the caucus and what i have to say i mean to have to. hire staff but still i mean when i'm with a pretty good president if you get to fart point in you know all this worrying about people i think is not appropriate but through certain point i think it's ok to put a long and complex obstetrician into small words and been ok well ok

i want to bring you some insight into this discussion is well i don't think it's you don't have to compare the american president to. think that's going a bit too far i specially speaking from the potence point of view and suffered greatly. and i think least contentious to make that type of comparisons i think that is a sion blinks was it a new kind. language we see it in poland also right now we have protests. against tightening of the abortion. ban and the language used by the people demonstrating in this she says she really really horrible. will galatea livable gal if you look at you know this is full that is asian if you look at the black lives matter protest in the u.s. the language being used the vandalism and so on you can see those societies

polarized in the u.s. and it is for rice jim bowden so remember that when i when i think language use who is responsible for that you wrote that the message is clear that this is a choice between president trump or an arche is that playing into that same type of polarized narrative you're just criticizing. well it of course it is it is playing into a polarized narrative but i don't agree with the fact that donald trump created this kind of close relation this has been going on for years and years and years this hasn't come about overnight over the last 4 years so what he does what most politicians do is they try to use to their advantage but i wouldn't say they created this is the same kind of reproach as is being made to the polish government and that polarized poll and that's not true so this is something that is happening on the american streets and you know us politicians should watch the language to

use things that i don't want to go presidential debates and i didn't find joe biden convincing even and i found him quite taking that step honestly speaking so there is really this is an election about everything one nothing so it would bring about a different kind of language it's we're discussing that we're discussing whether or not there can be debate whether or not there can be conversation that comes to consensus and compromise and what is the difference between the language of bullies and the language of authoritarianism versus the language of democracy right now we're having a conversation that's exactly what we need to be doing both sides are listening to each other and coming to conclusions we shouldn't be name calling we assume you're donald trump introduced the language of name calling into the political debate before donald trump became president there was you know the language has shifted so

gracefully over the last 4 years thanks to his influence and you've seen this on twitter you see this is what i want to get i want to get mr florence perspective on what your just sadness brian because i want to hear what he has to say on this as well do you think that president trump in the rhetoric that he's use he's made essentially any type of dialogue like the one we're having right now between different perspectives essentially impossible. well it makes it more difficult of course but at the least they had it for the moment it's more the product oh oh oh oh the curse of a development which lasts nobody for years and of course we have to wake up people and prevent from being don't forget with this language try to reach people who did not vote for years ago 8 years ago and didn't vote 4 years ago and these were blue collar workers and you read with us language though that's also approach towards democracy he ain't those people a voice and the people voted that also mean she meant and you need sometimes wait

your piece of people and you start them you know to be given some interest into politics and then you have to wake him up and i think or to suit up to a certain point or is it absolutely appropriate ok use strong work in order in order to get people you know who to vote and and who started to improve what well it did but miss it misapplying i mean strong words we have to say that the president has cast doubt upon the selection he had just recently on the campaign trail accused doctors of profiting from cold 1000 so where is the limit when we talk about what's acceptable in a democracy and also the liable this is the limits of lives. well that that's a good quite i'm with you but as you know we had a president before who said 152 times we need yes we can in change and that was the most candid change you there's another program uses

a different language i agree and i agree sometimes he's crossed the red line i agree but she's something sometimes you have to be a horror show in order to do to develop things i think to a certain point it was quite useful for people who make them up to make them believe wait them up i think i think at this point if the president should after you get elected today which i believe it will be he will go ok reelected i think you should well we'll see won't wait a little bit but it was felix no no i understand but because the fighting won't but i was certain point should come down i'm ok most of the ok i want to bring i sort of been going back into the sea in warsaw what is your perspective on it well i don't think the americans are going to vote over rhetorical i don't think that will play earth such a great well in the end it's going to be over questions like security economy and so on so in the end it's only tony because just what it is it is worth so i agree

that it doesn't help the debate this is not essentially what this election is about and i think people got used to donald trump's rhetorical the last couple of his 1st term in office and i think we should maybe not look so much to what he says than what he does because this was during a time when mark lay the central role in this election people are not going to vote for a good nice fitting suit the way he presidential candidate looks what he says but what he budgeted a president a leader to the people. yes you should be a leader to the people but if you if you know what i want quite a few americans i suppose maybe maybe even quite many of them are going to tell you yes he's a leader if anything so the race now wouldn't be so to like ok if that wasn't the case ok let's just bring this brian back in because i misread your just about to

say something in response to you so i find it interesting that you both keep talking about donald trump's results and i just want to point out the results that he has achieved he's achieved almost 250000 deaths from his inability to take action on the pandemic his administration has given up on the pandemic is that a result that we are looking for in a leader 000-000-0000 extension 00 yeah we're going to talk we could talk about this for quite some time i'm sorry to cut you off there mr fine because we're running out of time there so we're going to make that the last word on fortunately but thank you so much to all of my guests miss julia brian mr alexander and mr wind in germany thank you so much and with that we're going to head back to the news and that brant goff has all of our election coverage and the latest results and latest news for us so i'll hand it back to brett now.

samee thanks very much we're coming up on about 12 minutes before midnight on the u.s. east coast you are watching special coverage of the u.s. elections here are the latest developments polls have now closed in most us states results have been streaming in from across the country and there are tight contests unfolding in several of those battleground states president watching results from inside the white house with protests taking place just outside his democratic challenger joe biden is in his home state of delaware. had urged voters to cast their vote despite long lines at some polling stations today and here's some of the other election news that's coming in voter turnout is projected to reach its highest level in over a century with more than 100000000 ballots cast ahead of election day

republican senate leader mitch mcconnell has been reelected in his state of kentucky he has been a key supporter of president trump voters in georgia have elected to the house of representatives a republican who supports the q and on conspiracy theory and facebook and twitter have rushed to take down false. supporters that are claiming irregularities at polling station it's well our reporters have been hearing what voters have had to say in the state of delaware take a listen. that i get. nervous just hoping for the past. it is not very. hard to achieve let me. feel good i guess is an experience.

to be the right you. know other people. like you there. are do what you do w. special coverage of the u.s. election more in a moment but 1st let's catch you up on the latest world news. it's all stray has decayed 3 days of national mourning after 4 people they killed in a shooting rampage in the capital vienna a gunman opened fire at multiple locations in the city center he's been identified as a 20 year old sympathize off the so-called islamic state militant group police have arrested more than a dozen suspects in the hunt for possible accomplices of the killer. an eerie quiet on the streets a few as the city woke up to sense if dread. i did not sleep i feel for i still feel the panic.

only nervous 48 i live in the neighborhood next to i'll go from there you could hear a lot police have regained control over the city center after the trip might take shooting on monday night chance was about staying cool it's condemned what he called an islamist terror attack. it's it was an attack out of hatred out of hatred for our financial values out of hatred for our way of life out a favorite for our democracy people are equal in rights and dignity. but one thing is clear we will not be intimidated by the terrorists. until monday i had been spared large scale terror attacks motivated by religious extremism and urged his country meant to remain united in the face of this new threat. we must be

aware that this is not a conflict between christians and muslims or between austrians and migrants know this is a fight between the many people who believe in peace and those few who want. to enter the 1st gunshots rang out shortly after 8 pm the gunman was killed in the ensuing fire he was later identified as a 20 year old man with both austrian and north citizenship he was jailed last year after trying to join the islamic state in syria he was later released. the police are now is we're going through videos sent in by eyewitnesses to determine if he was a lone shooter. the video is no indication of a 2nd perpetrator however since the evaluation house not yet been completed we

cannot finally say how many put the try to sign actually responsible for the crime . scenes. went to the side of the shooting to pay respect to the victims declaring 3 days of national in mourning. it's take a look at some of the stories making news around the will cain has. battering homes and causing major flooding and landslides at least 3 people have to have reportedly been killed. during the storm is expected to hit across cuba to florida this weekend. and a has brainsick tree fall and blood clots the 60 year old was taken to hospital on monday for tests often and well. the operation went well. that is all for now it is back. in action coverage 3 thank you very much with me

here at the big table times from barker from the german council on foreign relations and you know we used to see events with our election see talk about where we're headed in terms of the u.s. senate we heard that senate majority leader mitch mcconnell from kentucky he has won reelection what is what does that tell us anything well if he was not in a very tight race but they the democrats tried to bloody him up a little bit put a lot of money into the state wanted to drag it out into the night and the fact that he won pretty early is an indication that you know obviously that kentucky was going to vote republican senators in really really tight republican control i think 52 senators to 48 in if i recall properly and there are 2 senate seats that were automatically assumed to flip the republicans have. the seat in colorado which was assumed to go to the democrats already has and the democrats held a seat in the they won the special runoff in alabama 2017 which they also

immediately thought would flip and it hasn't so all the kind of really tight races in the middle are the ones that we're looking at if trump or biden wins and the other side wins control of the senate that is really going to cost record lock in pushing through their agenda gridlock and that's i think this may be a euphemism is a very nice way to describe it right i mean let's say we do have a victory and we still have republicans in control of the senate yeah it'll make things harder but i think the difference between the way and biden would govern and a trumpet govern i think he would try to actually get people in a room and to go shit i don't think trump a nasty palosi have been the same space for about a year and they've spoken one on one that's a problem when it comes to leadership move but do you think the republicans in the u.s. senate are they the or the. you know trump or are they willing to talk compromise

with a democratic there's that are a trump in i suppose but i think that if biden wins and trump is of the white house they'll be less trumpy and now the more people that are willing to work i hope i think. also people keep talking about the senate and regards to the supreme court they keep asking biden are you going to pack the court. you know new justices that's a new point right there republicans hold on to the senate if the democrats were to hold on we're able to flip and get 433 seats if biden win and 4 if if not but let's say that they haven't a feets then you can start talking about adding justices that the republicans would go along with and it's not even just the just the court i think that the republicans had a pretty successful strategy which mcconnell he attempted to make barack obama one term president that was a successful but the election of donald trump was partially caused by the they

blocked jam that they put on all judicial nominees in the senate and i think that was so successful that i think that they will try to repeat that and broaden that strategy really look to not confirm any judicial appointments the. administration points and maybe really make it difficult to even appoint cabinet officials and i wouldn't doubt it that there's no indication that they would change their strategy for it is that also part of the story that i think a lot of your colleagues have missed in that is the having the republicans in control of the u.s. senate with a republican president has allowed domo trump to fill all of these judge position federal judges for example with conservative judges and those are lifetime appointments they're lifetime appointments the president has been in office now for . over 3 years 3 plus years and is filled 25 percent of all judicial appointments

in the u.s. judicial system that's unprecedented isn't it it's amazing i mean did these other republicans in the senate really had an alliance with the trump white house at to fill all these vacancies as quickly as possible that was their goal is to make sure their people young people in their late thirty's early forty's ideologically tested people who are going to toe the line and not change their positions once they're appointed were moved through the system as rapidly as possible what about georgia briefly there's what 2 senate seats that may be still up for grabs right so there was a midterm appointment loffler was appointed by the governor and she is up for her 1st reelection and it's time to coincide actually with the natural reelection of another of george and senator and they're both in relatively tight races if no candidate gets above 50 percent then it goes to a runoff so you have to get an absolute majority in georgia to to not have to do a runoff and for kelly loffler seat she's facing a jungle essentially

a jungle election she's got multiple opponents and if she can get above that majority she's got it all right time thank you very much you're watching g.w. news this is our special coverage of the u.s. election the day america decides where you want results and analysis of a race that is still too close to call but 1st here are the sounds and sights of u.s. election. day . the other. night. we will believe that there. are other.

rather. we are glad you are with us on this us election night it is midnight on the u.s. east coast millions of americans have cast their votes in one of the most polarized presidential contests in u.s. history some states have already been called but patience is a virtue and a must tonight key battleground states are still counting votes a process that could go on for days president donald trump and his democratic challenger joe biden are locked in a tight race that either could win. the stages are set for the u.s. presidential election results baton session to raffles the country and the world as

many states say it could be days before all the votes are counted it many times hour is still lie ahead for the cry to gather to watch the outcome. from black lives matter protests in d.c. to those waiting with bated breath in the big apple. 2 chilling trump and biden supporters in miami. this election is expected to have one of the highest voting turnouts in recent history even joining a pandemic indicating just how important today's vote is for the american people i voted for the greatest president in history donald j. . trump is doing nothing for us though that he's going to have very thing more on the control than what. trump does loved as intensely as he is loathed

donald trump has become the biggest issue on the ballot and tonight americans and many around the world will be watching how you react to their results when our lease. concession speech your acceptance speech you. hopefully will be only for doing one of those 2 and you know. losing is never easy enough for me. right joe biden is the man determined to turn trump into the loser his campaign through much of election day promising to heal america's divisions of proverbs. oh i'd rather have a proud democrat through work right i'm going to press robert robert redford for voters who are. both contenders have presented the battle for the white house as a struggle for the country's soul leaving many in the united states preparing more

1st storm than for an election party. and the ballot counting is still underway christine has the latest results. that is right granted i want to start off by just giving us an overview of how this election is playing out across the country it's show you that geographical map of the country at this stage in a moment that will come up for us and you can have a good sense of where we are in the country right now of course more states have been polled in the last few minutes if you will washington oregon california these are all big states that have gone and stayed blue essentially look at the states that all sort of trending right now if you look at texas 80 percent of the votes been counted there it is looking like it is going to stay red we can also have a look at the lights of minnesota wisconsin about 60 percent of the vote has also been counted then of course they like to shade implies that this is what a.p. is predicting the result will be when that full teddy does come through so a minnesota for

a boy that was close these look like that they will go rage and blue respectively i want to now break this down for you on a state by state basis so let's go to our 1st state because look at florida of course this is a key one tonight this is one that prison must win if he's going to stay in the white house we can tell you that 99 percent of that vote is in and it does look for me like it is going to do it to donald trump 51 percent of their votes to biden's 47 percent of the votes of that is called florida as things stand i do want to show you north carolina now 15 electoral college votes that's nothing to be scoffed at this is the so-called purple states everybody's wondering which way it will go now we have 99 percent of the vote in and of course having that lead just over 50 percent to biden's just shy of 49 percent tight close just as of was in the previous state now we go to arizona. 11 electoral college votes i just want to see how much has come in in terms of what that is the initial cavite and it is coming

to in a moment and of course we can see ok so kevvy off there 22 percent of the vote has been tallied in arizona so it's still early days in this race but we can already see joe biden with what's a firm lead in this place that is 53 percent to donald trump's just over 45 percent in the hof now of course this is interesting because this is one of the states that we would always say was a republican state but of course things are shaping up differently of the selection the magic number is 270 and right now biden is closer to that than donald trump is he is up to 13 to donald trump's 118 this is the state of the race we'll keep you up to date as and when things happen for now it is over to brant christine thank you very much let's take our coverage now to the u.s. capital washington d.c. our washington bureau chief in this poll standing by she is outside of the white house good evening to you eat is i mean we i guess we have to say you know this this night started with the results coming in it was like

a sprint and now we've we find ourselves almost in most lass's if you will things are moving so slowly now we're still talking about the election coming down to arizona pennsylvania michigan and wisconsin is just as you predicted it's late and we can't even declare who won florida. yes indeed brant it's going to be very very tired and i have to say i've been at this point 4 years ago and i'm not the only person who has the feeling this is pretty much as it has been when donald trump one the white house the 1st time so when they even things started biden was in many states ahead but this is kind of normal because this is this is when the wars from the bigger cities come in but when the more rural areas i get it. was coming from the more rural areas this is when joe biden kind of came growing and this is where we are right now so it's

coming down probably to wisconsin michigan and pennsylvania and it might take some days before we know who the winner is and one more sentence to that brand that both sides just have declared that they won't name or that there won't be any even or declared tonight so that's what both sides the democrats and the republicans just announced ok so we're getting from both the biden campaign and the trump campaign that there will be no declaration of victory tonight. ok that is some type of clarity that's what they say yeah ok well that's that is definitely clarity there so where does it take us that i mean we're going to we're looking now at a situation where these mail in ballots for example for in pennsylvania they have to be counted and so now we're not talking about a matter of hours we're talking about maybe a matter of days before we're we're talking about you know

a candidate pulling ahead or not. absolutely absolutely right in this is what soo many many people are afraid of where does this lead this country to which is so divided we have been able to travel the united states from one side to the other all of us all the 2 is in delaware right now was part of this team and we experienced the anger and frustration and all these really explosive emotions who are out there and what will happen if it takes days before we have a result that's a big big question and we experienced some of that tonight here at the black lives matter plaza just in front of the white house behind me it just needs a little spark and people people really exploded and we saw some clashes between police and protesters testers not only once but a couple of times so it's going to be maybe really intense days to come you know

america is a country on edge it has been that way for some time tonight especially so in his poll our washington bureau chief outside of the white house in his thank you our analysts move now a little further east to all of her salad he is in delaware where challenger joe biden is awaiting the outcome good evening to you oliver i mean if i look at the numbers that we do have so far the proportion of white voters backing mr biden has risen by 5 points on hillary clinton's figures at the last election that you would think would push her propel mr biden further but things are kind of at a standstill right now. it is a real nail biter here at biden's headquarters in wilmington and we have so far not seen any big surprises everything is leaning the way it used to.

according to the polls and it would have been easy to run through to walk through this for joe biden you know he would just have to win 38 college or 38 electoral college delegates in addition to what hillary clinton won in 2016 so the eyes are very much on states like wisconsin michigan and pennsylvania of course that would be enough if you won those 3 states to win the election but so far in spite of the polls suggesting a biden victory donald trump is leading in these states is very much too early to call anything here of course but that's a situation we've got to right now. and so it's early too early to say anything of course and you know we were warned about do situation by. joe biden because these mail in ballots and absentee ballots they have to be counted in also in these key states and that requires patience requires time so what we're looking

at right now that the picture of where the raised stands has nothing to do with what we may have just 24 hours from now right. yeah that's right in my colleague in those polls in washington d.c. just pointed it out how important these mail in ballots can become over the next days because look at this situation here where every state has its own rules there are some core drooling so also put in place if you want to look at one of the battleground states which is pennsylvania not very far just a 30 minute car ride from where i'm standing right now with it's 20 delegates up for grabs where it is also a nail biter situation right now and this state for instance has not even started counting their mail in ballots very much in contrast to other states that have started so weeks ago like florida for instance so it might depend on those states the situation there is that the republicans might challenge core drooling that

allows them to continue to accept ballots that come in even after election day so we are potentially up for chaos here all right so all of us in the u.s. state of delaware all over thank you very much. r.t. if you are joining us this is d w special coverage of the u.s. election it is election night and here at the big table with me we've got some folks who know one thing or 2 about us politics to my right is stacy ivins she hails from the windy city chicago she is now part of the election team to my left tyson parker ties used to work at the u.s. state department he is now with the german council on foreign relations it's good to have both of you here it's after midnight and if we compare this hour we're where we were 4 years ago it was becoming very clear 4 years ago that donald trump was going to win and i remember it very well but that's not the case now it's wide

open i mean really we have very little clarity and until we see start to see some deeper trend lines in the mid west i think it's going to be very hard for us to predict which direction this race is going to go i mean it's like walking through jell-o. . going right. arizona fields with michigan wisconsin nothing's changed i mean those are the big dogs that were waiting for them to come out yeah to be unleashed we need those and to have a better idea arizona does appear to be leaning more towards biden which would be remarkable for his campaign because it means that they've been able to extend the map a little bit are you reassured by the fact that this was telling us there in washington that both campaigns have said that they will not declare a winner tonight absolutely because it's all mixed up you never know what he was going to do and the fact that he was talking about this is going to be violence and

just talking up all of these you know very negative very you know scary scenarios. it just it just gives you pause i know that my sister spread out and i have 2 sisters in california and we're in a little family group chat and message to my rest time. make sure you vote are supposed to be violence in the streets and i had friends calling all over saying what's going on with the united states so this is telling me things are calming down and we're going to have a close to normal election and it's not what we expected from both the drum either mean even today he said subdued when he was asked about having a concession speech and the victory speech prepared right i mean he said that you know he doesn't like he likes winning winning is easy losing is hard but the way he framed it is he could lose he opened the idea of the possibility that he could actually lose which is something that donald trump rarely does he doesn't isn't so self reflective on him actually losing and the fact that the campaign is

deescalating from something his statements in the past couple weeks including through his surrogates that they were going to declare victory in the in midnight was the witching hour and that was the end of the election essentially. at least gives a course we don't know all the details but at least hints at some degree of normalcy and some degree of decorum which the united states is really going to need after this really difficult election even if biden wins the one thing that we can say is this country continues to be extremely divided where 50 percent of the country gave their mandate to one candidate who 50 percent gave it to the other candidate and should the biden human be were the media if we can't say that biden is ahead like we could 4 years ago for trying. well i think that the democrats are going to be nervous about this election anyway the polls are looking good for them but what happened to hillary clinton is very close in people's minds and you know i went to

bed that year with her winning rights got up didn't look at those ellis got on a plane and was falling asleep when the french guy next to me was like what are you for americans doing what do you do you know think what are you talking about so yeah i mean there's always next year early fall asleep. he said and i must say up. there well i think a lot of people are not going to be getting much sleep tonight again as they say thank you for that i stand by donald trump's attacks on mail in ballots and his refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power has raised the specter of a disputed election that was god has more. donald trump versus joe by the race could be so tight that neither of them emerge as a clear winner the u.s. could be in for days even weeks of uncertainty the record number of ballots sent by mail could become the focus of a bitter fight. absentee ballots made it easier for americans to vote and make

a local comic but those ballots are also more likely to be delayed slowed down by the states even projected if it's an extremely close election and the outcome could turn on absentee ballots that have not been processed or counted by election night with pennsylvania and wisconsin being states that are most likely to be in that position. then i think we do start moving into a more dangerous period we will 1st see fights oh over whether certain absentee ballots should be counted or not be counted with the election administrators in those states it won't be surprising if whichever side loses those battles runs to court to try to get a court to overturn it the clock starts ticking on november 3rd election day there are a couple of dates to keep in mind december 8th is safe harbor day that is the deadline for states to declare

a result if they want to guarantee that their decision will count towards the national outcome the next deadline on december 14th the electoral college has to vote that is the body that actually elects the president the state select either republican or democratic electors depending on the results. if there is still a dispute at that point it could get really complicated both sides might claim victory that means states could end up with opposing groups of electors one for biden another for trump congress would be forced to decide between them but if we get to that point we're already in a dark and dangerous place and if the process drags out over some significant period of time even though the media is preaching patience to the public i think in our social media toxic political culture that could become a more explosive situation. fairly quickly. some

americans worry that a more explosive situation could look like this the president's supporters and opponents fighting on the streets law enforcement and even the military could be called in to bring things under control. and what about another scenario that democrats fear and that president trump himself has refused to rule out that he rejects the result if he loses and tries to hang on to the presidency while the current president's term ends on january 20th by virtue of the constitution period i would assume that any officials who might need to be involved in making sure that transition happens will follow the commands of the newly elected president biden because he would be the president. the legal fight has already started the democrats and the republicans have amassed an army of lawyers who have been clashing in court over how and when ballots should be counted those cases should be

confined in the outcome of the election. in their report there is to me of course is talking about what could be a worst case scenario what we can say tonight is that we are in a stand down situation it seems both campaigns reportedly saying that they will not declare a winner tonight and we understand that joe biden is expected to make a statement shortly we're expecting we think that he's going to say no announcements coming tonight that's deescalation isn't it it is and i think that's what people need to hear just to be reminded that this is the process it's going it's going to be longer because we're in the middle of co that everything has been impacted by a pool of it so just be patient and let the process know if there's no cheating involved if one candidate if the power shifts it's just the way the process is working and we we've been we were told patience will be

a must. we were told by one side. i have to be fair to both sides of the pollsters have said that don't expect any type of resolution or clarity tonight and that's what we have or that was one scenario it could have been a blowout for either candidate you know where there was clear victories in several states and we could have all go ahead with and we could all gone to bed and had a decisive kick outcome but the most probable outcome was always this muddled outcome and the fact that both candidates neither of them are trying to grab the man mantle of a mandate and say this is mine i want it let's call it done is reassuring at least at this point it also tells us that the trump campaign is still unsure about where this is going to go because there is so much ballot counting to be done right i mean the vision you know sometimes you it's like looking at it

through a mirage and suddenly something appears the mirage is still too blurry we have not even a sense of the direction that that blue wall is going to go yet and even we haven't called florida but there are signalling we have signals we have data points that indicate that trump will probably win it but we don't even have those data points that is amazing right i mean it's almost 12 30 in the morning and we still don't know what florida's going to go if it's going to be for biden or for trial. it looks like it's going to go for tara but yeah there's there's no certainties right now but like we were saying that there are a fact that trump is standing down at that and has agreed to not try to snatch victory out of the ether i think that that's a big deal and it means a lot for our democracy for the process for the nerves of people for you know keeping violence of the streets i think this is a wonderful thing there was

a lot to talk about trump losing the suburbs of american. will there still be talk about that in the morning. of course i mean well it really depends on what happens with with the blue michigan wisconsin pennsylvania but it looks like from the early voting from the mail in voting if we go along with the idea that democrats vote voted early and they dominated that vote. then it looks like donald trump did very little to try to expand the landscape and he had a great opportunity to do it during after contract and coded he could have been the greater man and say i've changed my ways that's what we need to do. this moment yes and change the improve the economy he had a great opportunity. the summer with a black labs last matter movement and what happened with george floyd his killing at the hands of police he had a great opportunity has extend a genuine hand of black people not just window dressing so he could tell suburban

people look i'm i'm trying to reach out to black people because i've released some people from jail to make serious inroads in the black community and into the suburbs and he failed to do that this is the problem even when he got it right he had a chance there but instead he said you know you see from my you what you need of you special coverage of the u.s. elections here are the latest developments polls have closed in most us states results have been streaming in from across the country and there are tight contests unfolding in several of those battleground states the president has been watching results from inside the white house with protests taking place. you're looking at live pictures right there from outside the white house is democratic challenger joe biden ended his campaign in his home state delaware urged voters today to cast their vote despite long lines and some polling station. and the results are being

watched closely here in europe as well let's take this story to brussels now our correspondent teri schultz she's helping burn the midnight oil with us tonight good evening to you terry so let's. bring this story to your appear and talk about the importance of this vote to europe. i think many people brant will be waking up surprised at how little we point i mean we were conditioned to believe of course that there may not be a result by morning but the fact that so little has been determined maybe a surprise here in brussels but let me tell you another reason why people have been watching it so closely particularly american voters there are an estimated 4000000 or possibly even more overseas voters and those ballots can be cast and counted right up until election day so i know that democrats abroad for example was still calling people at 2 am local time in brussels trying to still sign up people to

vote and many of those voters skew democratic and so that is another reason why people on this side of the ocean are going to be watching very closely trying to make sure that every single vote is counted because they feel that maybe the predominantly democratic vote of the overseas voters will help the biden campaign what's the calculus there in brussels among e.u. leaders a belts a troop reelection i think there's a lot of trepidation that there may be a 2nd term of course the relationship between the european union and the trumpet ministration was very fractious president attack to the e.u. at every occasion including leaders personally like like chancellor merkel and others so i don't think it's any secret and polls have shown that europeans would by and large like to elect a president biden but at the same time they were steeling themselves for possibly

a 2nd term and what about nato we have heard very dark predictions that if we see a 2nd term for don't trump that would be the beginning of the end for nato. that depends i mean we don't know whether president trump would feel less constrained in a 2nd term because he doesn't have to run for reelection and may in fact try to fulfill those dreams of pulling the u.s. out of nato but you know in the end he sort of turned changed his tune on nato and said now it's a good organization because the spending the budget decreases stopped which he took credit for so he may in fact become more positive about nato despite his recent moves to for example pull u.s. troops out of germany and move them to other countries that really remain it remains a toss up his opinion he gets along very well with nato secretary general young stoltenberg so the fact that stoltenberg will remain in office could smooth the way

for us need to relations. but more do with for for the european union would be mean and easy. to help things were preached. not everything would go back to pretrial even if joe biden words have become president some things have been damaged. not for haves beyond. repair but for example the climate issue which of course has been completely rupture between the u.s. and europe that would be something europe would be looking for a president by to make quick changes on perhaps rejoining the paris climate accord for example i think the e.u. would definitely breathe a sigh of relief if it were a president biden but there will be things that would take some time to repair the most important among them being trust in the united states. burning the midnight oil with us tonight in brussels terry thank you very much. ari back here at the big

table now these are seated press is saying that trump has won ohio and iowa well and joe biden has won minnesota now that's the major movement finally that we're seeing and what we're receiving earlier that every presidential candidate has won ohio yeah yeah i mean but even that being the case and even ohio having all these identities and even with the fact that joe biden was able to run up his numbers among white voters particularly women in suburbs and. women without a college degree. clearly it wasn't enough to come over those structural barriers in ohio and iowa but the fact that it wasn't called earlier is also a sign right i mean the fact that it was still part of a let's say a midwest wall the larger one. is also something to say well maybe that will tilt

those states that were really on a razor's edge in 2016 more in the biden direction but now we've really circled it on those 3 key states of the region i mean it is so late in the evening infer the. get this from ohio. i think that no matter what happens the republican party needs to have a come to jesus moment you cannot soley run on or primarily run on white an educated voters and not expand your base and what there seem to be doing is focusing data mining these people who maybe didn't vote last time but fit the profile and not really trying to reach out to anybody else just want to tell our viewers states you are looking at live pictures now from delaware side of the biden campaign headquarters we're expecting a statement from joe biden shortly any time now so live pictures there from

delaware now this is come to jesus moment you were talking about for the republicans. you know where's the where's the impetus for that to happen the media because the base is shrinking there were fewer white people voting the white people that are in these rural areas that is shrinking you cannot sustain a party just on that demographic and it's crazy to think it's possible but what they're doing is they're focusing on that and then trying to take votes that are catholic only and that is problematic it is i mean there's all types of voter suppression going on i mean and you can even you can even see the gerrymandering of the form of the other than well i mean if there's lots of ways to take the vote away from people that said we have a an extremely motivated electorate and yes election but drove up turnout i would say probably at least 8 points and there should be honestly and i completely agree

also come to jesus moment on the democratic side because given the conditions if you look at the drop in the economy the coal that crisis management impeachment the gaffes the relations with allies. the polarization of society the black lives matter protests and this should have been a landslide but if they are this isn't a referendum on the president it's not up to joe biden so much the president needed to instead of having a campaign of hate which is what he's done and racial division which he continued to through even through the weekend this is a referendum on him and his policies you see those days you but i mean i think that is a very good point there are so many reasons quickly seen from europe for american voters to say get rid of donald trump the performance has been horrible there should be a landslide victory tonight and yet that's not what we're seeing we're not having a landslide victory because not all of the votes have been counted that we're still waiting to see how people voted in michigan how people voted in wisconsin how they

voted and pennsylvania it's not early because the votes have not been counted we're going to have to wait. at least a day to see what happens but i mean we will see how and let's also talk about arizona because if that goes to biden what was trying to i mean it looks like it's party was able to maintain the same states that they won last time except trump loss arizona yeah well i mean we're still waiting oh well we may have florida this my point though if if there if the democrats have done the job that you would think that they yes do florida would they have conceded the fact that what you're saying is true that in miami dade for example they needed to work hard to get out the black vote and how to get out the hispanic vote part of the problem for the democrats is that they were not can the thing so when the republicans are still out going door to door trying to get people registered and get people signed up and woo voters the democrats were doing that because of kobe and they didn't start doing that until maybe 6 or 7 wisdom for the democrats that's really

a bind because clearly the democrats it's part of their their brand but it's part of their their profile their identity is to trust experts is to listen to the advice of experts so the experts are saying we need to be socially distance these kind of encounters with strangers are dangerous that's a way to spread the virus and so they were really put in a very tough tactical position because they couldn't do this typical get out the vote effort where you knock on doors to my point though the vergers do not reward the democrats for doing what what the polls tell us that people appreciate the democrats for doing listening to science following the rules let's see. there are so many votes that are still millions of votes that have still not been processed are not been counted so let's see if that's true i mean i'm i'm going to be the devil's advocate and say that. that the democrats should have delivered a stronger performance so that florida would already be declared north carolina

would already be declared and there is that obama coalition i mean clearly that's there for the democrats there are the new. there are structural suppressive issues in the electorate which we've discussed but you could rebuild i mean the democrats it's in within living memory we have florida we have it we have indiana we have ohio all being won by democrats and the question is given the kind of conditions b.c. why is that not happening now and also when i think back to the primaries in the u.s. you know biden did not win in iowa he didn't win in new hampshire remember he really just popped up in south carolina and when he won that primary then it started to be raised right. that's one point the other point is he has had this lead over trump steady now since the end of february is 8 percentage points hasn't changed despite all these things that have happened and yet here we are tonight. still you know

listening to hornsby and. for our viewers i think calling minnesota if you are hostile if you are joining us now he is expected to speak any moment joe biden we're looking at live pictures outside of his campaign headquarters in delaware. see the podium is being shown they're also expecting him to appear in a moment and we have been told. he will probably. there will be no one else was made to 9 in terms of a winner. and we're seeing we're seeing a motorcade right now and we assume that is bringing joe biden in to deliver a statement right now look at that that's. that's looks like a presidential motorcade it was. supposed to. be with all the trappings of

having to do the vice president but i think that it is interesting that. the democrats were respecting what the science is about prove it and that could be it would be if i can just interject when we're talking about both parties need to have a come to jesus moment where you look at the democratic party and this big tent that biden has you have some republicans some high profile republicans that have come out in support of him. you have the progressive wing of the democratic party you have white educated people coming back to the fold you have some white women who are non-college educated who are coming back so for the democrats they have this big tent and it's growing they're rebuilding the republicans have one main demographic and it is shrinking not the problem it is shrinking but it's also being let's say strategically positioned given the structure of the u.s.

political system so we do have demography changing we diversifying it's getting younger the united states that is concentrating in specific states and specific urban areas getting a call right now is calling florida right now for. 29 electoral votes going to. that is the biggest prize among the battlegrounds so far that's just coming across. one thing we can say about this in this call is if biden would have won florida that would have ended the night but trump winning florida does not and that is true. remind the viewers and ourselves of that the victory of floor in florida for the u.s. president. is not going to make his past 270 electoral

votes this is fairly easy or. well it would have been almost impossible for donald trump to lose florida and still be in the running. but biden can lose florida and he's still alive he still has a chance like i said he looks like he's expanding the map with arizona and we still have to get all of those votes those mail in ballots counted from the law yes if we've got if we're saying we've got arizona looking like it's going to go to buy it we've got taking florida that means where north carolina. is more important than it was. pennsylvania of course and that was always a place going to have to win pennsylvania. but what about that blue ball what about wisconsin michigan. i mean those that's that's the trifecta and i honestly i think with the michigan and wisconsin are going to be very similar. michigan.

obviously in industrial heartland it has to try to a very large african-american population democrats really i think it really wounded them to lose. michigan which is just the heart of union country that is ground 0 for the american worker and to lose that in 2016 was a real shock and so i think they've really invested in michigan i don't think michigan is as much in play as wisconsin and pennsylvania but even wisconsin this seems to be coming around and if you look at the $28.00 team election i think that they feel strongly about wisconsin the feel good although. it's really about pennsylvania. it's always been about pennsylvania but now really. i mean it's. really. here for joe biden to appear. the cameras are positioning it could be any moment right now i'm also getting

a report this is interesting. that the voters in mississippi have approved a new flag with the magnolia instead of the confederate symbol. just came across you know just a little trivia there for you so we're expecting to speak any moment now it's getting quiet the horns have stopped there let's see if the camera shows us the podium a little bit closer and what we can tell you what we've been told and we've been told that both camps both campaigns are not going to declare a winner or loser tonight. that's not a big surprise and on here we go let's listen in. to your cause you are who.

are her how her or her. or her how. or why. or how. far who are who. you're hearing. your patience this commander of all we knew this is going to all but who knew we were going to go into maybe tomorrow morning maybe even longer but look we feel good about where we are. really sure. i heard tell

you tonight we believe we're on track to win this election was. we knew because of the on pressure down early vote in a mail in vote is going to take a while but we're going to have to be patient until we the hard work of tallying the votes is finished and then over to every vote is counted every ballot is counted. but we're fairly good we're feeling good about where we are. we believe one of the natchez suggests that we've already won our. zona we're confident about arizona that's a turnaround we also just called it from minnesota and we're still in the game in georgia although that's not what we expected. we're fairly rare good about wisconsin and michigan oh ok and by the way.

it's going to take time to count those we're going to win pennsylvania. let's talk to phelps and fairly allegheny county scranton and they're really encouraged by the turnout and what they see look you know we could know the results as early as tomorrow morning but it may take a little longer as i've said all along it's not my place or down tribes place to declare who's won this election that's the decision of the american people but i'm optimistic about this outcome. thank air every one of you came out and voted in this election by the way chris coons and democrats congratulations here in delaware was. a john good the gov yeah the whole team and you've done a great job i'm grateful for the poll workers to our volunteers our canvassers

everyone to participate in this democratic process and i'm grateful to all my supporters here in dollar and all across the nation thank you thank you thank you and folks you heard me say before every time i walk out of my grandpa's house up in scranton you know joey keep the faith and my grandmamma's your zawia know joe we spread it keep the faith guys we're going to win this thank you thank you thank you for. your patience is very. wealthy guy. telling supporters that. we're on track to win this election and to keep the faith have patience. remarkable we had expected him to say that. nothing will be declared tonight which he is saying but he's also saying the signs are all in green for the biden campaign

this go to all over salad now all over salad he's standing by there in delaware all over can you hear me. rand i can hear you what a very brief quick visit but this is exactly what biden fans what his voters were hoping for some words of comfort some optimism that he was really spreading here when he spoke just very few moments ago we've just had it live on the channel and basically what he is trying to say is don't give up hoping and it's a year in fact he's even more so optimistic that he will win this election it is a nail biter though we have to say so his supporters will be very happy to hear that fox news earlier called arizona and that would be quiet an achievement for joe biden that is a state republican stronghold that wasn't won by a democratic contender since 996 bill clinton at the time but all the other states

are open the important swing states and undecided and the big prize since like texas and florida are wins for donald trump so it's still very much open it's not decided yet and that was the message of joe biden here with a lot of optimism for his supporters commitment this late hour and he's saying patience is a virtue patience is a must all right all over salad thank you very much oliver all right we want to get some more analysis now from this u.s. election and what it means for europe and the world let's cross over now to the w.c. she meets the misconduct she has more in washington. thank you brant of well as you said you know as your viewers are joining us here on our election coverage we wanted to really dive into some of the issues that are driving the u.s. right now and this hour we want to look at one issue that is

a really crucially important here in the u.s. inequality particularly as the covert 19 pandemic has dealt a big blow to the u.s. and as racial and socio economic components have been made even more evident and i have a 2 guests joining us from the us tonight we have lee and i just johnson he's the host of the podcast informed descent he's joining us from columbus ohio welcome to you and we also have peter matthews with us he is a political analyst and a professor at cypress college author of the book a dollar democracy on steroids with liberty and justice for some he is joining us from los angeles gentlemen it is great to have you with us and just to say we've been talking about inequality you know directly or indirectly all year with the impact of the pandemic and i just want to bring up the point that inequality in the u.s. does go well beyond democrat or republican there's been a steady rise since 1900 by all measures from household income to consumption and

economic mobility has slowed down but we want to really take a lens on this now specifically with the pen demick so mr matthews i want to start with you because you know your individual story is actually one that reflects something that a lot of our viewers who are joining us from abroad might be familiar with this idea of america as this land of opportunity you are the child of indian immigrants who came to the u.s. were able to build on that american dream so do you still see america as the land of opportunity. it's been limited quite a bit since we arrived here you know 50 years ago when i came here at the age of 10 my parents came for graduate work and they were able to finish and climb the ladder by getting a good job both mom and dad and that all 4 of the children got college degrees with no college tuition because it was virtually tuitions free very low tuitions no student debt and so we live the american dream every one of us 4 children were able to raise families get graduate degrees become professionals and this is

a long time ago because nowadays my students who are you know 40 years later the students are having a credible time with student debt being able to finish their degrees on time because you have to go longer they have to work 2 or 3 jobs so i believe the american dream has been curtailed by the bin unfortunately because of the corporate elites who have been basically able to buy or corrupt the american government quite often by paying for campaign contributions and lobbying money that's the basic premise of my book actually dollar democracy steroids how to win back the american dream what the middle class dream for all. ok so i want to ask you more about that in a moment for 1st i want to get mr johnson's perspective on that very same question because as i said we have so many viewers from abroad who are very curious about this i mean do you think that mr johnson that america is still this land of opportunity. oh absolutely absolutely it is and you know anybody can do anything they can achieve anything that they put their mind to there are some limitations and you know there are some issues with that with government control and crony

capitalism as the professor was saying and you know those issues need to be dealt with those are on a government level but at the end of the day we are products of our own behaviors and choices and i'm sitting here today. and example of the. i have a bachelor's degree a master's degree and my parents didn't go to college and you know so these things. everybody is responsible for their own behavior and everybody can achieve if they put in the work and they have the perseverance as long as you have it even if you are an african-american as. i just want to follow up on what mr johnson said you are an african-american as well so do you not see a racial component to inequality and socio economic disadvantages right now in the u.s. well yeah i mean there's there's disparities but. you know as i always say the disparities

not always equal bias and there's a lot of variables that contribute to these disparities and for example wealth tends to increase with age and you know you'll see 18 year at age gap between black americans and white americans so just that one variable is going to contribute to the wealth disparities so there's a lot of different things that play into it there's historical facts but you don't know how much it's actually playing into that and then you know people just have to look at. their own situations and like i said. it's a comes down to behavior and choices and culture and the way things play out yeah ok mr manager i hate your choices culture what do you think about that well i think you have to go historically back to when african-americans were enslaved here for top 100 years and they lost so much of income and even more than that we look at 3

fifths compromise in our constitution the african american the fight as 3 fifths of a person in order to get the slave states more electoral votes were coming talk about election to their electoral vote system is so biased toward not just small states but back then it was the largest state were genuine the large states that had 60 percent of population slave population and so you gain the votes in the house with more seats in the house and you get more electoral votes when it was awarded one 4th of its electoral votes to the african ring population which meant they were able to win the presidency actually require 26 votes to win regional was given to a lecture although it's based mostly on the african immigrant population which was a larger than the white population structurally quality after world war 2 american veterans were not allowed to really take part of the g.i. bill just legally there is to take part in they were stopped with the red lining from buying homes of the g.i. bill provided for white parents and so a lot of wealth was lost and the right was a structurally qualities that i think resulted in what's going on for the various racial and outs of class ok so mr johnson. go ahead mr i mean so there's so there's

there's historical facts nobody's denying that nobody's denying that there's and there's not historical facts but the idea that those historical facts account for all 'd disparities or even count for any of the disparity at all is as a giant leap of logic i live in appalachia. a region in the united states there's one of the poorest regions in the country and the poverty rates like 19 percent across the region in some places like athens county ohio it's as high as 30 percent so you look at a resume like that where you know people have been in poverty for generations and you know most of the people here are white so the question is why are they in poverty why do why does that inequality exist among white people and why is that explanation not good enough to explain black poverty and so when you start when you

zoom in a little to digital so love now when i you know i just want to zoom in to right now if i could ask you mr johnson and ask the supposed if you starting with you mr johnson because we've taken out this is circle perspective but if we come to today and now what do you think the last 4 years have done to the country in terms of inequality because a lot of people accuse president trump of favoring the wealthy in america particularly with us tax cuts do you think that's the case. no not at all if you look at the actual research. most people got a tax cut and what the media normally pushed was that you know people didn't get as big of a tax return and that made people believe that they didn't get a tax cut because people were used to getting a certain amount of money on a return and what they have actually met was they paid less taxes throughout the years so they didn't get as much back so the the way that they kind of twisted that

made people think that there wasn't there wasn't as much of a tax be cutting the regulations in the tax cuts it's definitely helped the middle class and to boost income so it's not it's not just the wealthy. well if you listen to master and others you're shaking your head go ahead because if you look at the overall specs of the tax that the dollar amounts 84 percent the tax cut that president bush president trunk and the republican congress burst through 84 percent of the top one percent the population was disproportionately oper class elite white and some african-american what people thought were what is disproportionately a class issue there and you're right about appalachia because sure there are very poor schools there are underfunded drug united states the best question that region but also not only area the los angeles county where you have one school district having $7000.00 per pupil spending another one in northern dollars 24000 dollars

per pupil spending and then you have textbooks that are inadequate in the schools are underfunded in putting out a larger outdated textbooks like a good healthy food for lunch all of this very there are structural they are engineered through legislation and through lack of good legislation that would close corporate who will bring money into these empowerment programs and education will be the best mechanism if it is equally funded and it's not on that you know that's a problem before it's proportionally hurting african-american children children of color and also white who are white children is a class issue and a race and ethnic issue superimposed intersectionality those. i want to ask how those you and the other question before we have to wrap up because our time is running out just one more question of both of you and i'll start with you mr johnson something i heard from a lot of voters who i spoke to of the last he says they feel like they don't have an equal chance anymore in america they want to get back to a place where they have an equal chance at mr johnson what needs to be done to ensure that that is the case. well i think just getting the government out of the

way that's just the main thing because you put you put government programs in place government regulations and it causes more problems than it helps and i always say trump is the best president for this because biden abidin the ministration is going to inevitably lead to a bigger government which inherently means less liberty and if you want to foster the american dream you have to allow people to do what they think is best for themselves and their families and like i said get the government out of the way so i think liberty is the answer to that. ok mr matthews well i think that freedom is no good without opportunity so the freedom to become an educated person for a full human potential will not happen and you have equal opportunity in terms of equal funding tuition free college would be a great way to go that we used to have in california for 20 years we had to be college when the high tech boom took off and made those people who invented the of

the software they got to share because u.c. berkeley calif stayed in europe in germany for university for all the way through graduate school and you have a larger middle class larger middle class less of a gap between rich and poor in america the average income of the c.e.o. is 265 times the income of the average worker in germany it's 136 in the us back in 90 before reaganomics it was 41 so we have to have opportunity and then the freedom will mean something so you can become your full self at the question and kind of this pursuit of happiness you can't pursue your happiness your full potential until you have the opportunity that's without and don't want to broad that no one else and just a quick follow up. just a quick follow up on that mr matthews in 10 seconds if you can't do you think joe biden is the candidate to bring back that opportunity. much more than absolutely joe biden spent 2 trillion dollars in schools and education high technology transfer to new types of technology green technology creating jobs he's already

come up with tuition fee call it ok for me. yes i think you might get much better than this point to do that unfortunately what i have to leave it there very interesting discussion gentlemen thank you so much lynn ictus johnson and peter matthews for joining us in this talk segment talking about an a very important issue here in the u.s. inequality and with that i want to head to hand it now back to brant goff in the main studio who is going to bring us up to date on the latest results and the latest news in this election season. sumi thank you very much we're coming up on 1 am on the u.s. east coast you are watching t.w. special coverage of the united states elections here are the latest developments polls have now closed across all states in the united states with both candidates winning key state democratic challenger joe biden has just made

a short statement claiming that he is confident that he is on track to win but he's asked supporters to remain patient and wait for the final result meanwhile president obama will trump just tweeted that the democrats are trying i'm quoting here to steal the election he said he'll make a statement later on tonight trump have spent election night in the white house while protesters gathered outside. and here's some of the other election news that's just coming in boded turnout is projected to reach its highest level in more than a century with more than 100000000 ballots cast ahead of election day republicans and it majority leader mitch mcconnell has been reelected in his home state of kentucky he has been a key supporter of president trump voters in georgia have elected to the house of representatives a republican who supports the huon on conspiracy theory and voters in arizona new

jersey and washington d.c. have backed measures to decriminalize marijuana and psychedelic drugs. by some to the latest results now and christine has those numbers for. that's right we've had more calls coming through in the last few minutes and it's to give you an overview of how that race is shaping up of course all polls have now closed in the last few minutes we can see montana has come through and has been called for donald trump so has utah we can also report that iowa florida as well as ohio have come through for donald trump as well minnesota went for joe biden so this is the state of the race as you can see it in color let's break that down to how it went down in florida with all the votes counted we can see donald trump obviously took that by $51.00 just over 51 percent off that vote biden trailing

with not so good enough just about 48 percent i can show you another state now and that would be the state of ohio 18 electoral college votes that have also been won by donald trump with that foot having coming through that is quite a decisive need for president of course this a good is that bell with the states as ohio goes so goes the nation that is because since the 1960 s. really ohio has picked the winner of every 8 election pennsylvania is also they we've got 20 electoral college votes it is a key states key battleground state in this election 59 percent of the vote is coming through in pennsylvania we were just listening to biden he's confident he could still take that but look at it right now just over 57 percent goes to donald trump 41 percent biden is trailing but still confident told the supporters to keep that hope and to keep that faith in the state but i want to show you before i go

that is arizona we're still in the race of arizona 11 electoral college votes there joe biden has 53 percent in the lead that 75 percent of the vote has been counted you can sort of see why the biden camp thinks that is still firmly in the race. of course arizona this is a place that no democrat has won since really bill clinton back in 96 that is arizona now of course to 70 is that major number that we're looking at biden dess appear at this stage closer to that number does than does donald trump biden's 223 to trump's 174 of course 270270 that is the magic number for the night that is the state of the race. to brant and the panel. christine thank you very much i want to welcome our viewers back here to the big table we're going to talk about where we are right now in this election and to do that to

my right is if we can do that right now is richard walker he is our chief. international editor and to my left is just you know she is a professor of history at the for university of berlin j.f.k. institute both of you welcome we had a change of personnel here tonight it's good to have you at the big table let's talk about where we are right now we got that statement from joe biden we were getting into late into the night nothing was happening and he said have patience we're on track to win and richard yeah i mean. kind of both candidates saying pretty much the same thing but in that style so we've had joe biden coming out and kind of pretty you know sounding very optimistic we feel good about where we are feel real good about michigan and wisconsin and how we're going to win pennsylvania now as you guys have been saying the night these are really crucial states is where

the battle is going to be fought. but he did add. all of the votes have to be counted is not up to him or to donald trump to kind of call this is up to the votes have to be counted donald trump in the last few minutes has tweeted we are big but they're trying to steal the election we will never let them do it votes cannot be cost off the polls are closed so this is kind of his style of saying something rather similar which is kind of we're going to win. but what we see here is the beginnings of what could be a serious showdown at these last battleground states and with that you know that tweet he is implying that someone's trying to. now but that's not the case i mean all of the polling stations in the u.s. have closed right so it's typical trump but were you surprised we saw you come out and say just bear with us have patience we're on track to win i think it's really wishful thinking. thinking and he's trying to appease the people

out there in the street who want to hear anything any sort of statement of reach. surance and that's he's delivering in many ways it's wishful thinking for wishful thinking because as we just heard i mean we don't have any clear results yet we won't have a clear result we might not even have it for days or weeks so i think people are waiting to hear something candidates feel a great deal of pressure to hear something but to me what we've just seen here over the last couple of minutes is groundhog day right i mean like waking i've been sitting here with you 4 years ago i and i'm thinking the only thing that's different right now is my dress. seeing a situation very much in terms of uncertainty. we saw in 2016 with this expectation that by this point in this evening florida would have gone to joe biden but it's gone to don't mean anything well of course it means

a lot i mean if we're going to biden then the night would probably have been over i mean i think you're right to say that these are words of reassurance from biden because it is it's it's a disappointing result so far for the democrats they're disappointed they were really optimistic that they might be able to get you know one of these kind of like exotic prizes for them florida a state that they haven't won since obama was even talk of maybe even being able to win texas you know states that really are not kind of democratic territory. it seems that the last of those states where biden is still in the running is georgia is going to be interesting to follow that during the night but the only state that it appears that biden has managed to flip so far from the hillary clinton result from 4 years ago is arizona and publicans are already challenging that pretty hard so that's also potentially a taste of kind of. legal wrangling to come in the next few days next few weeks even. yet as things stand right now for the democrats it's disappointing in c.

i mean i've been scaring lots of different people on twitter about narrow ben rhodes who is like obama is top people said i'm switching to vodka oh oh. that's not a good sign let's take a listen to what joe biden said just a few moments ago. we believe we're on track to win this election. we knew because of the odd pressure down early voting a mail in vote is going to take a while we're going to have to be patient until the hard work of tally of votes is finished and then over to every vote is counted every ballot is counted. our list going into all of our salads he is standing by in delaware. where joe biden just made that statement all over the question is does joe biden know something that we

don't know where is this sense of optimism where is it coming from. well joe biden knows brant and that is something that we also knew is that donald trump might announce victory there were reports that he just took to twitter saying that they're trying to steal our elections what he said and he's referring to the mail in ballot so and then what joe biden also knows is that this might take a while and this is exactly why he asked his voters his supporters to be patient because he knows states like pennsylvania they will start counting their mail in bad ballots tomorrow and a supreme court verdict said that this is possible to be done within the next days even accepting new ballots that come in after tomorrow so all of this might take some time and therefore as you've just discussed there at the big table we don't

have the results yet we need to wait on this specially that applies to the midwestern states where there is a lot of ways pinning a lot of hopes on wisconsin michigan and therefore spreading this optimism that we've just heard here and what about this tweet from donald trump the u.s. president accusing the democrats of trying to steal the election there's a better to be the reaction from the buy camp. well the reaction is very clear that he it what he is saying and richard walker just just said that very well is that don't buy into that and wait until all votes are counted that's his rhetoric here the voters decide and not anyone calling for a premature victory what president trump might do it some point there were reports of that and that by the way has been his rhetoric from the very from the start

from very many months and weeks that he's trying to discredit the mail in ballots because what we know of course is that those people mailing in their ballots are rather on the democratic side rather than on the republican side all right over salad in delaware over thank you very much to the u.s. capitol washington d.c. our very own needs for was standing by outside the white house good evening to you . talk to me what was the reaction of the crowd when joe biden made the statement that he made and he told people just of wait we need time to count these ballots. yes my friend the atmospherics here are really dull people are leaving they have very frustrated the evening started really jolly and joyful there were high expectations that joe biden might win the white house and now it's looking really really not so good so most of the people are slowly going home in this cold night

and that's the situation here in front of the white house in washington but there are real surprises though we knew that this situation would probably happen we know that these 1000000 ballots have to be counted specially in pennsylvania so things are progressing the way they. were predicted that they would and now we've got the u.s. president tweeting that the democrats are trying to steal this election here i mean isn't that an attack on. the legal process of a fear and free election in america. most definitely i mean you had just a richard walker discussed and all it was solid in delaware that's kind of the worst scenario which is coming true he didn't only to me that the democrats are stealing the elections he just tweeted 20 minutes ago i will be making

a statement tonight a big win what does that mean will it happen that the president of the united states as states declares a week to review for all votes are counted that was a very big fia early on and as we were traveling this country oliver with me and other members of our team here we constantly heard of trump supporters if he loses this election this is because it's reeked it's stolen so there is a possibility that if he did play as the week to reno and we find out later that it's not like really him the winner of the ceiling. that it's going to be really hard to convince his followers about the truth. to. the white house in washington thank you very much. there has been no surprises tonight trump's attacks on mill and ballots his refusal to commit to

a peaceful transfer of power it's raised the specter of a disputed election which appears the direction that we're headed in right now here's more on that from. scott. donald trump versus joe by the race could be so tight that neither of them emerge as a clear winner the u.s. could be in for days even weeks of uncertainty the record number of ballots sent by mail could become the focus of a bitter fight. absentee ballots made it easier for americans to vote and that is local damage but those ballots are also more likely to be delayed slowed down by the state's projected if it's an extremely close election and the outcome could turn on absentee ballots that have not been processed or counted by election night with pennsylvania and wisconsin being states that are most likely to be in that position. then i think we do start moving into

a more dangerous period we will 1st see fights oh over whether certain absentee ballots should be counted or not be counted with the election administrators in those states it won't be surprising if whichever side loses those battles runs to court to try to get a court to overturn it the clock starts ticking on november 3rd election day there are a couple of dates to keep in mind december 8th is safe harbor day that is the deadline for states to declare a result if they want to guarantee that their decision will count towards the national outcome. the next deadline on december 14th the electoral college has to vote that is the body that actually elects the president the states select either republican or democratic electors depending on the results if there is still a dispute at that point it could get really complicated both sides might claim victory that means states could end up with opposing groups of electors one for

biden another for trump congress would be forced to decide between them but if we get to that point we're already in a dark dangerous place and if the process drags out over some significant period of time even though the media is preaching patience to the public i think in our social media toxic political culture that could become a more explosive situation. fairly quickly. some americans worry that a more explosive situation could look like this the president's supporters and opponents fighting on the streets law enforcement and even the military could be called in to bring things under control. and what about another scenario that democrats fear and that president trump himself has refused to rule out but he rejects the result if he loses and tries to hang on to the presidency while the

current president's term ends on january 20th by virtue of the constitution period i would assume that any officials who might need to be involved in making sure that transition happens will follow the commands of the newly elected president biden because he would be the president. the legal fight has already started the democrats and the republicans have amassed an army of lawyers who have been clashing in court over how and when ballots should be counted those cases could be could find it in the outcome of the election. those details submitted has gone to reporting there we are still waiting for president donald trump to address his supporters with millions of votes still left to be counted the president appears to be trying to cast doubt on the outcome tweeting just moments ago trump wrote we are up big but they are strong to steal the election we will never let them

do it votes cannot be cast after the polls are closed it must be said that there have been very few reports of irregularities at polling stations twitter has flagged trump's tweets the one that i just read with you as misleading. and we have to say that it is mis leading jessica i mean no one's talking about votes being cast now the polling stations have also you know actually asked us and we've seen very. very little about irregularities it seems actually the voters have been behaving very well in fact what we've seen and i think you just talked about this is that they show up very early at the polls way before opening time in order to cast their votes and then of course there's a full issue with the mailing it might just be that this is what he's trying to imply you know there are votes being counted after the polls have closed that have been sent in by me because people are not don and that's

a great irregularity here i think nothing is happening that hasn't been done every other knowing exactly so what is what is he doing richard this is really sowing seeds of discontent and mistrust yeah which is has been part of his playbook for a long time i mean this is going to be a very important statement is really a very important moment in how this whole process is going to play out is he going to stay just on the line of you know the sort of biden line of affectively sort of tub thumping saying you know we've definitely won this and that will be proven or is he barreling towards either declaring victory or very close to doing so or coming so close to declaring victory that saying that anything else that might emerge from these mail in ballots which are then counted in the future. not valid is beautiful and i think this was refers back to what you said earlier because it's

nothing any president or any candidate to declare themselves the when it's right that's not within anybody's rights or already what usually happens on election night once you know a trend is clear the candidates speak to each other one of them concedes in the other one goes out and says i've won and the other one kind of does it that is. what happened last year in $26.00 the groundhog days kind of going to get us that far and i mean it can add to that because it's not just what he's saying here but how he's saying yes once again this darn tweet tweet that doesn't speak the political language that we our generation has been used to but that gets right to these people everywhere who are sitting on you know they were delusional he attitudes or their guns perhaps in order to in ignite really the popular mood and on top of that of course twitter flagging this up is as saying at the moment it's disputed and it might be dismissed leading of course that for the republicans is

evidence that twitter is on the side of the democrats and that they're interfering in this process. everything into what we know is that all these comparisons that have been made with the 2000 election you know we can throw those out now because if the president does come out and declare victory or contest this this is going to make the 2000 election look like peanuts right. yeah i mean i would be surprised if he outright declares victory i think what he's going to do is kind of come close and say we're sure that we've won and that we will dispute what we think is massive fraud going on and then that creates sufficient doubts around the process to serve the purpose at least for now of holding fold. the decision right in front of the supreme court where it could ultimately lead to when it depends on a state by state basis you know there will be challenges going on in each of these states both parties have armies of lawyers both parties it was specially tono trump

has trailed this very loudly i mean he has me a shy about saying that he's going to do this in advance we can't say that there's anything has happened tonight that is surprising we have been more yeah you know still we haven't expected it you know i'm not sure i mean i think the democrats their hopes got ahead of them you know and some of the projections. again it's looking like a pretty bad night for of the pollsters in specifically in particular states where they were calling florida. and predicting florida would be it would be a biden victory i mean. i haven't been in the states reporting this year but from what everything i hear about florida in of florida is not was not on the point necessarily of doing a massive flip of and i think one thing and maybe we can get to this is a fact it's a night it's quite interesting and appears to be a trend in it not just florida is biden underperforming among latino. standby we want to just welcome folks who are just joining us you are watching

special coverage of the u.s. elections let's get you updated on the latest developments polls have closed in all u.s. states and the race between incumbent president. joe biden is tight strong pads taking important states such as florida and ohio virginia and minnesota among many others from inside the white house the president just tweeted that democrats are trying to steal the election twitter has flagged trump's tweet as misleading its democratic challenger joe biden offered a statement to supporters insisting that he is on track to win all of america needs to be patient results he said have to be counted 1st. speaking of results in school christine she has got the leaves no. that's right brain so polling has closed across the country but votes are still

being tell even we can tell you the latest right now news coming out of texas that that has stayed red to texas and it's 38 actual college votes go to donald trump so here is the map of the country you see it in color and shape and size you do see a lot of rate over there very few states remain on called full that is georgia north carolina pennsylvania wisconsin and michigan of course these are states that we will be watching closely but here it is arizona as well nevada still very much in this race but here is the state of the race basically looking at it from a geographical perspective it's 0 in on some of those states for you now and we will start off by showing you how it really panned out in texas there for you so we know that that's been called for donald trump and it seemed he came through with that just shy of the 52 percent of the vote there to joe biden's of 46 percent of the verge i have another state for you that will be north carolina we have been calling the stage one of the most crucial ones. the question wrong with carolina if

it'll come up in a 2nd there we go so 15 electoral college votes then the question was always was it going to be that rural vote coming through. going to see black voters coming off of biden along with those suburban voters but look at it now 94 percent of those votes have been tallied and donald trump is in the need psyche. with just over 50 percent there in north carolina so that's 15 electoral college votes there with 94 percent of the votes counted i also do want to tell you what's going on in georgia this is a mega crucial one this is a great state georgia right but it is possible for biden to pull an upset in the states 87 percent of the vote has been tallied trump is in the need with just over 52 percent of that vote but in trade. just over 46 percent of that votes of that is georgia 16 electoral college votes. percent of the votes had and still very much in the game so these are the ones that we will continue to watch i do have one more for you every zone up before i go so 11 electoral college votes over there let's

have a look as a graphic sort of comes in there and i can tell you that how much of the vote has been counted 77 percent of the vote has come through in georgia joe biden sorry arizona joe biden in the lead $52.00 and a half percent of the vote trump trailing $46.00 point it looks solidly listen to joe biden only he was confident about this one it does seem to be going his way but of course it's not over as he sate until the last vote comes through so of course the number where. it is to 70 let's look at how the race is heading also it is joe biden's to 24 to trump's to 12 again that magic number to 70 who gets there 1st he most likely won't know this evening but don't take that from me ahead of an hour to breaks at the big stable frizzy thank you very much never want to talk about politics and personalities president trump in german chancellor angela merkel well they've had a rocky relationship these past 4 years where has that left us german relations you

know we used to your reports were even before donald trump became us president it was clear the relationship wouldn't be easy. now merkel what did she do she's destroyed i mean she's in the process of destroying germany with a migration time magazine they didn't even give me the man of the year the person of the year they should have. that's why it's heading down the tubes folks. they gave it to a woman who's not done the right thing in germany it's not doing too well over there. that woman on the cover was in fact german chancellor angela merkel. and will once trump did become president she congratulated him on his election but in typical american style she threw in a subtle dig. george moment when america germany and

america connected by values democracy freedom respect for the law and for the dignity of human beings regardless of their origin with skin color religion gender sexual orientation or political views. order. this photo of medical facing trump at a g 7 meeting went viral seen by many as a perfect illustration of their report so was their 1st encounter when trump ignored america's suggestion to shake hands. thank you. one of the biggest sources of disagreement has been nato trump has attacked germany without pause saying it was not paying its fair share towards the alliance. germany as you know is

a very delinquent in their. payments to nato. and they're paying one percent in this supposed to be a 2 percent of the 2 percent is very low it should be much more than that so they're delinquent of billions of dollars and this is for years the liquid. when trump tweeted racist attacks on this group of democratic us congress women openly condemned his actions. because i didn't see the midst of an achievement. i firmly distanced myself from the attacks and i stand in solidarity with these women . in america's strength from my perspective lies precisely in the fact that people of very different nationalities have contributed to the strength of the country. therefore these a statements that run very much. to this impression of mine for. a

strained relationship but also opposite approaches like on how to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and how to wear a face mask. now with trump fighting for a 2nd term in office and mikko in her last year as chancellor it may soon be time to kiss goodbye the question is how soon. it has been a difficult 4 years for the transatlantic relationship let's talk about where it may be headed now brussels bureau chief al xander phenomenons is standing by and. interested us here in berlin i'm joined by g.w. thomas sparrow both of you are since i wanted to say good night but i guess it's good morning here in europe alexander let me start with you i want to get both of you are reactions to what we've seen just in the last few minutes we've got joe biden saying wait we're on the way to victory but we have to wait for the votes to be counted we've got the president saying the democrats are trying to steal this

election alexandra this is probably the worst case scenario in the eyes of the european union isn't it. yeah i would say so nothing that maybe they hadn't expected but nothing that they wanted to see and that is why maybe we are not seeing any reactions from european leaders from the e.u. officials because they still don't know who they are going to deal with and then the next 4 years and i think that was very remarkable was what a european council president child michel said on twitter a couple of years i'm sorry a couple of hours ago and he said that it will be an addict of all night and it's for the americans to determine their future but he also said that this is a very important moments to reflect on their common values step to europe and the

united states share and that is of course what's at stake here from the european perspective that's a very good the what you're seeing there the crisis group yesterday advised political leaders of the united states to keep their mouths shut into a wall but it's been killing it. what about the view from berlin and i'm sure i can imagine that in the chancellery they're not throwing a party over what we're seeing happen. i think in the chancellery and also in the political offices there obviously waiting to see exactly what the results will be what we've heard from various politicians in the last few hours in the last few days can be summarized with 2 key points on the one hand that they want the election to be s. peaceful spa civil and on the other hand that they want clarity also as quickly as possible because they want to work with the united states on

a wide range of of issues that's something that we also heard this morning here in berlin this appeal for quick clarity in order to be able to move on with the transatlantic relationship and it is a very big thing for germany also for europe to see what exactly will happen and in what direction this transatlantic relationship will move in the next 4 yes you know only xandra before we say goodbye i want to answer based on your years reporting from washington and no being in brussels. how bad is the condition of the transatlantic relationship at this point. very bad i would say and of course that is why many here fear that a novel or 4 years of donald trump would mean that this existing deficit of trust would become irreconcilable breach of between europe and the united states i covered the white house in the last 3 and a half years and i was in the oval office and on

a regular basis and i heard president truman criticize germany criticize the european union he called to europe full and that was of course there a red line for for many europeans and everything he did pulled out of the parents' climate agreement pulled out of the iran nuclear deal with drew from from the world her slogan is asian his disrespect for multilateral organisation his disrespect for long held allies all of that was a very traumatic experience for europe because they had to learn in a very hard way what it means when the united states disengaged and said that is of course the reason why they are now hoping for joe biden to win this race you know well as you say is a virgin and is now a necessity for alexander phenomena brussels thomasville here in berlin to both of

you thank you. for some more analysis on what this u.s. election means for europe and the world want to cross over now that you don't use so much gone that she is in washington d.c. . thank you brant that's right i'm here in washington welcome back to our viewers who are joining joining us for this special talk element of our election coverage where we get to talk to some guests about some of the crucial issues in this election season we're trying to drill down into those and all eyes around the world are watching what happens here not least because of the impact the u.s. has on global politics and security as we just heard so rude to discuss the global policy foreign policy with the guests who are joining us now a global group with us rebecca leo is the executive vice president of scooch a no she's a writer in china analyst joining us from palo alto in california great to have you

we also have a lot he is the managing director of s.k. advisors in india he is a business leader and he's joining us from mumbai great to have you with us mr locke and francisco is with us from germany's going party she's a member of the committee on the affairs of the e.u. and deputy member of the committee on foreign affairs going to have you as well a mystery i want to start with you in california because in this homestretch of this election campaign we actually at the same time saw the u.s. secretary of state my pump a 0 wrapping up his 2 are in asia a 5 nation tour that's being called an anti china tour. tell us what china makes of this because this is very much in line with what we've seen from the trumpet ministration over the last 4 years and yet still this was a real effort to show a bloc of support against of china. well thanks very much for having me you know me this tora by secretary comports with the rest of the trumpet ministration foreign

policy which is we're going to bully are supposed ally in helping us versus china our purses and other well the adversary trying to use this the same way that is the u.s. outreach historically in the asian region as being a little bit ignorant about the different dynamics that play between the different countries that surround china that are in many ways more dependent on china economically than the u.s. understands and also in terms of cultural ties diplomatic ties the u.s. has not had the best appreciation for how difficult it is for those countries to go against china in a very late manner the obama administration try to form a coalition of those eastern nation that would be allies to the u.s. and would in some ways help to contain china they were not successful in that

mission they tried to do it through economic state crocked but it didn't work now trump is trying through bullying and through being blatant about being i anti china and anti chinese it's not always a word you're saying i want to ask you you're saying bullying and you say it's not going to work but if we look at the fact that if there's a possible joe biden presidency he's actually expected to take a similar aim towards china so if it's just tone that will change in the u.s. approach to china the aim will be the same why would a change in administration matter from china's perspective. i think town tends to be a catch all expression for the failures of the trump administration i think what the trump department doesn't understand is that it's not just about how you see things it's also about the strategy the wider infrastructure and the relationships around your objectives in the asia pacific region and so it's not just about being the right word to china or it's you other would be allies of the u.s.

in the region and it's about having a strategy and if the only thing you can say to those countries is we need to be anti china or else you're probably going to hear the right words when you're actually visiting the countries but if they're not going to wrecking dr paul i want to get your perspective on this and also the european perspective i mean is it possible that president trump has actually gotten something right in the some more aggressive stance towards china because we do now see europe playing catch up on that stance particular when it comes to intellectual property and technology concerns about that those shifts or do moves in your opinion poll that. are due to and caused by internal chinese development and what the at all to the rich and a to our own companies being in china but there has been a very different approach from europe tour it's china. and i see that the american

bullying is counterproductive when it comes to your peened there's an. i give you one example of high b.g. the digital world. pushing so hard against a way it's rather helping in the they did chinese counterproductive that the moves and the changes we have they come from internal chinese development that growing towards a more authoritarian a more assertive state and hence forced a reaction of our own vomit into dollars so i know there are many in europe as well who have 9 raised concerns about 5 g. and while away so is this no matter how or where the us should align with europe. i have been voicing this myself many many times all i'm saying is that i'm not doing peace because of mr trump and that i find mr trump's intervention to be counterproductive for my argument in a german debate i want to bring mr eyelash in mumbai into this discussion because

mr i like you believe that president trump has actually been very good for relations with india particularly also his approach towards china that india and the us have been able to align on this issue so what exactly has president trump have to india with with the stance. you know i think ah prime minister tried his best to have good relations with china and i in fact many given in the 1st dummy invited china and china game and everything yes but india is going to be has been let down by china in terms of militarily in or because they seem to be more powerful they're gaining an issue and india has been able to get australia vietnam or the countries around you know taiwan everybody together against china because china has expansionist space is only triggered by trump now if that didn't happen then they would walk over what pakistan did walk over a number of countries and say look the south china sea but on still us and taiwan

would be there so all i'm saying is from an indian point of view with a very happy that trump was there and it would be strong to win again and i mean i'm not getting into a debate on that i like drunk or not and it's great put everybody to talk about trump and saying he's a guy who actually goes into either destructo there's no question and he's put america 1st so put him employment but only if i'm going to make sure i don't minister i like what i say actually disrupted when it comes your way you know when it comes to china because he hasn't actually china or chinese aggression and we've seen a very aggressive china over the last few years internationally and domestically. there he destructed in the stance that he is standing in a number of people going to the south china sea sent the army stored in india they're going why do you i'm behind you and you sent on the wash it's in the you spot a walled up. instead of taking produce in this part of the world and australia which was keeping out the sun started supporting you know because of jump on all of this

because look where we like it on our china and economically what has happened is that most indians slept with their idea or anything with you don't know what 5 g. we were on we're supportive but not our we are doing our own beaten and we are the orm of information technology and obviously we're trying supporting us your good morrow idea and then 5 you know what we already want as i will need talking only from an indian point of view it is and being indian industries to stand appaloosa moving out of china and setting up peace in india and ok i like what he's doing vietnam is gone ahead because what the what india is saying is it doesn't matter whether we have an important brand but come in manufacturing india come in give us employment we'd open our doors which are not happening prior to all right let's i mean that's what one might see let's get nestle aus perspective on what you've been saying there mr a lot mostly al do you believe that's the case that president trump really has been a disrupter and shaken up the scene and perhaps pave the way for some new alliances

yet i actually know what sort of are. and i think plain words for had her class be hanged. fitting in a lot of california we are the hall of silicon valley we have many many disruptors here who are really in founders who take their companies from 0 to a $1000000000.00 valuations within the span of 3 to 5 years that's what it means to be a disruptor it's not just about being a socially ill man urge or a not having the ability to speak well it's about having results so you can have whatever personal character manner you watch as long as you have results and what president trump has projected is incompetence on the international stage as well the domestic stage but we're focusing on the asia pacific region right now and in terms of disrupting the u.s. trying to relationship i do concede that president trump has made some very tough points about china and i needed to be static at some point the fact that they have

not been out there bargain on trade agreements that they have been aging and human rights abuses that people protest about that ultimately do nothing about that they have become more aggressive militarily overseas all of these things need to be called out but in terms of how we actually counter it i think it's so much bark and you know bite and going back to my earlier point that it's not just about just fact that you talk tough but you don't do anything about it the chinese are very very good at nothing that out and just waiting for this person and that culture and to leave and they will then do what they want and what is all can i have and it is ok because in many ways it's true the chinese because. america is actually in decline and that there needs to be a superpower that will say ok that power back and that superpower is china. i don't want is that superpower europe. you know i when you ask just about building

alliances i had to laugh because it is one thing doesn't want to do is to build and nourish alliances and that he had strong harkness the u.s. . doing everything to destroy the alliances he had he's not based on relationships years somebody who is trying to action today i'd like you to more you're my my opponent you're my any me to make countries like germany being an enemy of the us or calling them and then you me i think it's not the way to counter china it's not helpful in building global alliances for democracy that's how you lose alliances so so i think it's certainly not been successful and i think we as europeans we have to build up our own strategic sovereignty because we will not be able to rely on the us will be reelected so i hope biden will win this election while if you take a look at the results right now dr if i know what do you make of them they look to

be very very close and if there were to be another 4 years of president trump in office with that push europe further towards having to choose perhaps a tween the u.s. or china as a strategic partner. i hope that we europeans take to the situation to be a player ourselves and invest in our own capacity to act to make the euro a strong currency to invest in our own digital sovereignty i really hope that if we're not going to go either side but our own european. to be our actor ourselves and i think also what that will be the case of biden wins he will have to obviously deal with many internal issues it's very tight there are so many internal difficulties in the u.s. he will be absorbed if he wins by internal the question so i think we as europeans a better advised to take care of our own sovereignty and invest in this whoever will win if it's fight and then we can build common partnerships on climate

protection on fair competition worldwide and it just so area but i think we as europeans have to watch file itself and also to watch that we defend the basis of our democracy which is social cohesion and equality. ok mr i like i think you want to comment on something that was said there you know i just you know i just want to see that look there was a cold war between russia and america and there was the book was in russia has some extent come down and china want to pick up that position so domes of india the i just offering an option right now to see it look if you want it being attitude or you are doing google you got guys to come in and make an india and therefore we've got the capacity you've got the people who we have the education why are you ignoring india and therefore to that extent trungpa speed a big role in getting investment into india and doing a balancing between china and india and therefore let's not forget that because i'm

prime minister is also saying the way the award is going the next 5 years is going to be everybody is for them for himself like that levy said in europe you think about your ok trump is going to go out and ready because prime minister is going to think about india and we don't have the capacity it's just that trump has a will and that would ensure that india would do it that's it you know and i'm like all i'm going to say i just want to grow as events that can get italy out to one last quite quickly respond to that what are you going to be called had the right things were done nothing is starting to be the democrats that want to stamp their writings what they've done up the ok to say oh we have to literally just 20 seconds left to get in let you respond to that. while i think trump is ultimately whether you have benefited from him in the past or not and i'm reliable partner and that represented and you are his friend today and your enemy tomorrow depends on how he feels about you might you've done for him right now maybe that is

transactional nature and that is ok in business but in diplomatic and productive. well i have to leave it there very interesting discussion thank you so much to our a to my guests rebecca leo sunil and francisca patton it was wonderful to have you with that i'd like to hand it back to brant goff in the main studio in berlin with the latest on this crucial election. thank you sumi you are watching to be used as your coverage of the u.s. elections the race between incumbent president donald trump and democratic challenger joe biden closer than expected trump has taken important swing states such as texas and florida by in this one virginia in minnesota but pennsylvania wisconsin and georgia they are still up for grabs from inside the white house the president tweeted that democrats are trying to quote steal the election twitter has

flagged trump's tweet as misleading his democratic challenger joe biden offering a statement to supporters insisting that he is on track to win but noting that everyone needs to be patient and wait for the ballots to be count as. we believe we're on track to win this election. because if they aren't president early vote in the mail in vote is going to take a while we're going to have to be patient until the hard work of talent votes is finished and then over to every vote is counted every ballot is counted. back here at the big table it's not over until every ballot is killin it. or is it not over until dawn which. is it so what's going to be the reality you're moving forward

richard a lot depends on what you know he sets the tone here this is you know i remember i mean i was in the states covering the last election in 2016 and there was always this debate about what point is trump going to become kind of presidential you know when is he going to sort of shed is his kind of populist tub thumping style and actually take on a sort of a more of a kind of classic presidential to mina this was before every debate before every. every event before he actually stood up that. and did his inauguration speech and it never really happened you know he stayed true to himself but this is now a very serious moment. that really requires of a president a degree of restraint of him a degree of restraint is uncharacteristic for him. and i think the way this plays out in the next couple of days a lot will hinge on what he says now he can either be incendiary he can stoke or he

can just stay on the line of saying ok you know the essentially the same message is we think we're going to win this let's see what happens our lawyers are ready you know i mean that would kind of be a message that would be kind of acceptable but if he goes down this line of saying they're stealing the election now votes are being counted now that are not valid then we move into more dangerous territory i actually disagree with you on being presidential. i think we have a very specific idea of what we mean when we say presidential and his idea of being presidential is very different but he understood what his voters wanted to hear and see as presidential and he's done that very successfully so i think we need to revise our idea of what is presidential because and i hate to be the boring historian again here but the man the type the language even the slender is very typical of presidents that we have seen under 50 years ago he is a man straight of the 19th century and that period can also tell us how well that

sells himself incredibly well we our generation the people most people out there have gotten very used to this post for ideal of a president who is very erudite and speaks in complex terms and juggles names and numbers well it turns out that's not what a lot of people want to hear any more than they want to hear that language and i think we should start paying attention to this well in order to be prepared was coming not just tomorrow but really for the next 4 years he's going to set the tone yes but on a much more fundamental level and i think we're thinking it's not just about the next couple of days it's really a tectonic shift and you leave a communication time do you see is headed for a constitutional crisis it's the president continues stoking these these feelings that this this election is not legitimate absolutely absolutely but it all will depend on the institutions that are supports to enforce the constitution and

provide the checks and balances that we've all been talking about if the people who work for those institutions do their job then it wouldn't be hard to get out of that the problem is that we have institutions that are probably staffed with partisanship so it might actually be precisely what you're suggesting yes a constitutional crisis bridges richard thank you very much you're watching the news this is our special coverage of the u.s. election the day america decides we'll bring you live results and analysis of a race that is still too close to call but 1st here are some of these sights and sounds of election night it's. please. the beloved

mother lovely. lovely little a. little up love. love love love love love love. love. playing