the 2 candidates a locked in a tight race trump on the battleground florida ohio and texas but biden also won suffering states by trump's ought to compete including new hampshire and minnesota. this election is expected to have one of the highest voting turnout in recent history even during a pandemic indicating just how important today's vote is for the american people i've voted for the greatest president in history don't hit a wrong chump is doing nothing for us so that he's going to have everything more on the country than what. 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 for a storm then for a new election party. our chief political editor me is in washington and joins

us now. says he is on track to win trump says he's already one word of thanks dad. yes well it's still looming so to say there are very slim margins we're talking about and at the moment it looks like it could all come down to the battleground state of pennsylvania that also was a key for donald trump into the white house in 2016 last time around 20 votes in the electoral college they're up for grabs and if it comes within a very narrow margin a recount could be requested and then we would get into the territory of several days if not longer until we have a recount or those court cases that donald trump has already in or announced he wants to launch taking place at the same time in arizona interestingly enough the conservative channel fox news got

a lot of flak from the campaign for calling it to early in favor of joe biden and then the governor's insisting that every single vote should be counted same thing actually the pennsylvania governor of the democratic governors calling for so really whenever it's in their favor 2 both sides want every single votes to be counted only donald trump would like to reserve the right to declare victory before the electoral system and those people conducting the counting have really finished their job because it's been a very long night of course it's about 6 am on the east coast were you or put lot of people but the whole night i suspect you have to this is still too close to call how are americans dealing with it. well i think a lot of people gave up and went to bed and were hoping to find out by breakfast time who the new president will be i think that a lot of people had been warned

a lot of the networks here had said this could be a very long night but the question is will the patience simply be there and polling that was conducted ahead of the elections about the mood here also so that there isn't just simply this great divide that we all keep talking about in relation to the united states but that everybody is pretty much very happily locked up in the bubble so the big question mark is whether both sides can agree on which reality they disagree on and this is when it comes to the heart of the very question how much faith people have that the bipartisan election. will actually be a port of call that is neutral that is independent and that will their votes be counted that's kind of lingering in the air of course these flames being fueled

by the very president himself declaring victory and saying also in advance that he expected very bad things to happen in pennsylvania with those ballots cast and it very well looks like it will come down to those ballots being counted because very small margins here only a couple of 1000 votes here and there once again making the difference. what do you make. of trump promising a legal challenge when it comes to counting votes. no he's not promising he's threatening it and of course having managed to appoint 3 judges and secured a republican majority in the supreme court he speaks that to be in his favor so this is power politics playing out and it is simply in terms of

process way too early to start talking about going to the supreme court immediately because particularly in those battleground states and in the case of wisconsin there's even an automatic recount if it comes within the one percent margin there's still a lot of processes to go through before this comes to the supreme court so donald trump clearly sending the signal that he feels unless he wins this election would have been taken from him and the overarching concern of course is that people will not just take to the streets but would that we might see some very ugly scenes here in the united states. thank you very much that was our chief political editor. in washington. well trump's claims of fraud have drawn strong condemnations from both sides of the political aisle democratic congressman adam schiff who prosecuted trump in the impeachment trial

blasting the president for quote acting like a would be despot and adding we will count every vote and ignore the noise democrat nader who headed the nato who headed the impeachment process tweeted every vote will be counted that is the american way plain and simple in arizona and in pennsylvania and in all the remaining states no stunts or laws or cheap political theater going to change that criticism also from trump's own party republican congressman adam kinzinger who easily won reelection on tuesday criticized the president in a sharply worded tweet saying stop full stop the votes will be counted and you will either win or lose and america will accept that patience is a virtue. and just in a mash a former republican who left the party over trump mincing no words saying that was one of the most dishonest and despotic speeches ever given by the president of the united states for. so quite

a. strange situation will say but perhaps not unprecedented it's still early days when it comes to counting but let's bring in our chief international editor richard walker who's with us and philip you've been associate professor at occidental college specializing in diplomacy and world affairs gentlemen good to have you both. just like 4 years ago we're down to a situation where the midwestern states a handful of missed midwestern states could be key we're talking michigan wisconsin pennsylvania how's it looking there richard. all 3 states still counting and maybe counting for some time we may get results for instance from wisconsin during the course of the day but it's quite possible that it will take until more like the end of the week to have results announced in for example pennsylvania and the picture is

a little bit different in each state but the overall picture is broadly this that. they are all catching up with counting of these votes that was submitted this year there's been a very large number in fact 100000000 votes were submitted before election day either in past and or via mail in ballots and that is you know had a huge surge partly because of the pandemic going on obviously the people thinking they should keep away from kind of big lines in in the election booth on election day but what makes this particularly politically sensitive is that the numbers suggest that a very high proportion of democrats voted early and republicans voted on the day. so that's the situation each of those states and that's really the reason why don't trump would be keen to see the count stop and leave out a lot of these early votes which haven't yet been counted because that's nothing those 3 states crucially have in common that they only start counting early votes.

on election day or just the day before it. so he's keen to sort of say well look these are the votes counted today anything else that may have come in by post is potentially 14 and let's make it cut and stop there of course the democrats countering the votes that was submitted legally and in good face must be counted that's the democratic process. i think we really have to stand back and say that trump is saying here is really potentially quite incendiary not just setting up potentially days a weeks of legal conflict but also slowing the legitimacy of the result whatever the result is into a profound question which is potentially highly destabilizing for the u.s. ok so there's the whole boat count question which is important obviously and we have to see how that plays out in terms of the legality of his legal challenge if he does indeed mounted as he says but when we look at the numbers if we do get

clear numbers the electoral college is such that joe biden could lose pennsylvania i'm told but if he wins wisconsin and michigan he could still have it in the bag is that is that the case or are there other other elements in play here for example georgia or got it closer to a shift i mean there are a number of states still counting and there are a number of different sort of paths to the gold number of 270 electoral votes. that you need. yes biden does not necessarily need pennsylvania that's the kind of biggest prize still remaining and he would need multiple states that you just mentioned that but yet it's really you have both a poll states kind of falling into place. counting drenched to heads of for instance in wisconsin so he got that is a place that would be a little bit of a step closer but i think. in pennsylvania at pace he had quite

a big mountain to climb ok the polls were off again surprise surprise you know i saw some polls saying that there's only a 5 percent chance that that joe biden will lose this election fascinating stuff now we got the situation where it's totally up in the air we simply don't know how did pollsters get it so wrong philip again despite all the data and data crunching capabilities that we have today absolutely i mean i think this is going to be you know a lot of soul sort of searching for pollsters that one of the more respected polling models from 538 predicted about a one in 10 chance for trump which of course is a chance there is a path there but this the way this played out did not look like most of the scenarios we would we would have expected and i think you know part of the the explanation for that might well be that the codependent make has changed so many elements of this race you know you have one candidate joe biden who really held

very different kind of rallies didn't have the same kind of chemistry or door to door that we've seen in other election cycles in part because his message was one of science and one of really centering the way the pen demick has disrupted american life and i think that a lot of police models might not have been able to account for that kind of uncertainty and of course don't trump is also seeming to mobilize a lot of new kinds of voters and i think there was probably a false expectation by pollsters that that wouldn't happen again in the same way and it seems to have you know happened that way and even grown his base ok so polling obviously there's some work to be done there some people are criticizing the electoral college system itself a very fundamental architecture of the american electoral process do you see problems there if you see efforts for to reform that nick. any headway as

a result of this election you know well i mean the only colors does have problems the idea behind the electoral college was of course that what were population states would get the attention of a presidential candidate so you couldn't have a presidential candidate only appealing to new york and california and texas large population states they would have to win major ortiz in multiple states and that was the idea behind it however what we've seen in the last decades call into question what is happening here in the last 20 years we have had a republican president in our in office 12 of those 20 years and a republican president who's only won the popular vote once which means that the democratic and that one time was in 2004 with george w. bush and that really calls into question what is happening here with the party you know the 2 major parties with which used to have strong urban and rural bases have shifted and the electoral college seems to be democrat it seems to be benefiting

the republican party in a way that a democratic candidate haas to win well over 2 percent of the popular vote tom any chance at succeeding in us and if trump does pull through in the result of venture he's very unlikely to win the popular vote you know in this currently he's more than 2000000 votes behind joe biden if you look at the the nation as a whole which is similar to what happened in 2016 and that is really difficult for a lot of people a fathom when you lose the when you win you win the popular vote but lose the election and that of course is rather difficult gentlemen stay with us we're going to be coming back to you we want to take a quick look at a couple of other things 1st we have more on the global perspective regarding this election president trump and german chancellor angela merkel have had a truly rocky relationship in the last 4 years where has this left ties between the u.s. and germany did julius on daily reports. wiretapped 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 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 america 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 vic so annoying to you will 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. which is one of the few limit 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. therefore these a statement the ground very much counter to this impression of mine for me of these guns has. 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. a spring in russia spot should course here he's chairman of the european parliament's delegation for relations with the u.s. senate for polish foreign minister thank you very much for being with us he joins us from warsaw by the way so what do you make of donald trump claiming to have won before all votes are counted well that's a lie he's not winning either the popular vote all of the electoral college votes. but i think they have a pos to mocking pennsylvania and some other places because that's the only challenge so far winning this this is by losing the popular vote.

these past few years have been a rocky time for transatlantic ties to say the least you chair the european parliament delegation for relations with the us what it contested us election mean for that relationship. well it will be in now the marquee against. america's soft power. this time based on the constitution you know. the votes of americans are not equal i have an american wife who has voted in maryland and have won she is almost irrelevant because maryland goes one way any way. i would love to be able to say we will work with whoever wins and of course we don't take sides in this and that but of course we know that this is a uniquely hostile president to the european union he backed breaks it and mr

faraj he's called us a firm who he's threatened us with sanctions and we would prefer to have someone in washington with whom we could jointly. have a strategy about how to manage a more assertive china for example. that's from the european point of view but i have to say where in my parish hat we have a local trump assigned park here in warsaw and they've been quite close to president trump at and. and they've got hers and the abolition of visas. and something you might not like in germany but sanctions on hold free market population in poland because without them the investment which is harmful to our central european interests were already finished so individual member states within the european union obviously have different relationships with the united states poland is an interesting example but in light of what donald trump has been doing

recently could be either you with your e.u. hat on could the e.u. still view him as a reliable partner. well baluchi is the last quality that springs to mind just like truthfulness no this is an unpredictable leader who is incompetent in foreign affairs he's managed to offend. older leaders of the democratic world that i can call of he seems to be much more comfortable with the state but even there where the president cio if you enjoy i don't see much success . and of course it's difficult to rely on the man like that on your security. and this is why i think europe should start taking the idea of strategical autonomy seriously but that would take results as in real commitment. and i don't see any of

that. rubbish up sikorsky the chairman of european parlance delegation for relations with the us thank you very much my pleasure by. and back here in the studio we still have richard walker and philip you with us but the whole world is watching this election u.s. election just watched all the time but this one is particularly interesting because it could end up with a very different result depending with a very different candidate pending how it goes what what is at stake in this election internationally. one of the key areas so much as a stake in this election internationally i think you know the leadership role that the u.s. has played in the post world war 2 period has changed fundamentally in the last 4 years and i think there was a lot of hope that abidin presidency would restore a multilateral leadership well

a leadership role that worked in multilateral with most thought or partners and allies and also restored a kind of humility to to the u.s. was formed looser world re entering the world health organization deal the paris climate accord you know just are some examples of what you know everyone was kind of holding their breath seeing you know the u.s. returned to that and i think with trump as the last speaker just said there's a watt of you know uncertainty head if the that's where we end up ok multi-lateralism at stake here richard we only have about a minute left what's your what do you see as the key issues at stake here internationally well yeah i mean i think that's absolutely the case i mean europe was taking a lead watching this this result with bated breath i've also been reporting on that quite a bit recently and there was a sense with donald trump that he he was pulling away from dish ad values that

across the atlantic and i think. there was a real fear that you know if these if these values fullaway and what is left of the basis of the transatlantic alliance. richard thank you very much richard walker philip you good to have you both with us terry martin you've been watching special coverage of the u.s. election we'll be back again at the top of the next hour with more meanwhile to the point coming up next thank you for being with us.

good. thing. to the point sean opinions of your position on the international perspective some of. it's tense it's exciting and it's disturbing america has voted in

a momentous presidential election just because you don't trump against job i trump already declared victory and once the supreme court to stop counting. to the point that i'm going to come up next a lot of d.w.i. because. i'm not thinking out of the jam well enough sometimes i am but i stand up and whip it up and read the job and think the printer jemma called. looking at the stereotype in here think the future of the country that i not. yet needed seem ridiculous drama day out to me it's all about. bob i might go join me to meet the gentleman from p.w. . post. again.

he should learn his respect. the e.c.u. team. the bull dog the dog mob. good school should all be. submissive. in respect. it's tenses exciting and it's just a thing america has voted in a momentous presidential election the disputed republican incumbent donald trump against democrat challenger full of vice president joe biden welcome to the point. well the turnout has being a huge with long lines in many places across the country president trumps.