this is news coming to you live from. worlds apart the reactions to a u.s. presidential race that's still too close to call. every ballot is counted frankly we didn't win this for the. president claims victory but so far without the need to. ask for patience the election now comes down to the final vote counting in a handful of states. hello

i'm terry martin good to have you with us the phrase too close to call is ringing in the ears of americans as they awaken on this day after the presidential election there's still no certainty as to whether challenger joe biden has been able to defeat the incumbent president donald trump well they're going to will we'll continue in a handful of states in the last vote as the last votes are counted still the president suggested to supporters that he had already won an alleged fraud once again without presenting evidence. to stage. the u.s. presidential election results. counting the votes is still underway but the president has already claimed to be terry. we were getting ready to win this election frank. really we did win this election. this is a major fraud or

a nation we want the lord to be used in a proper manner so we'll be going to the u.s. supreme court trump was referring to mailing votes that will be accepted after election day in several states his reaction comes after biden arched notice to be patient. we believe we're on track to win a selection. we really are because if they are pressured early voting a maryland vote is going to take a while we're going to have to be patient until the hard work of talent votes is finished. the 2 candidates a locked in a tight race trump on the battlegrounds of florida ohio and texas but biden also won suffolk states where trump sought 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 smote is for the american people i thought voted for the greatest president in history gone ok sharon champ is doing nothing for us now that he's going to have anything more on the control 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 more for a storm than for an election party. let's go straight to washington where our chief political editor mechanic is standing by became biden says he's on track to win trump says he's already won where do things really stand.

well it's still unclear who's won these elections and as morning breaks here many people who gave up on the race last night probably hopes to know who the next president will be by the time they have breakfast this simply doesn't look like it's on the cards it comes down to a handful of states including wisconsin and pennsylvania and pennsylvania there are still hundreds of thousands of votes due to be counted counting was interrupted in some precincts overnight and counting is only just getting underway once again so we're at least a couple of hours away from knowing which way that key state is going and we've also seen a reaction from the biden come out right after donald trump went on that was after biden 1st spoke saying he was on track to win then we have trump basically claiming victory over id declaring that this was an attempt to take it away from him and the biden camp is now alleging that trump is trying to take away the right of

every individual american in the 2 democracies so this is the kind of mudslinging that we were all worried might happen that's where we are right now with counting still on the way. because so it's still too close to call and there's a lot of tension there of course howell or americans dealing with this whole day being patient as joe biden store or we're beginning to see some interest. but we saw some people last night heads towards the white house area we haven't seen violence on the streets that what the what many people were afraid of the big question is once it comes to the clinch once it comes to this so down once we have networks declaring for one side or the other what will happen then because we've seen base ahead of these elections reaffirming what's

a divided country this is with many people on both sides simply not willing to accept if the other side wins an entrenched sense that victory can only be clinched from them if there is some kind of foul play and that says that we're not even talking about a shared reality here anymore so some very tense hours and potentially days probably even weeks of uncertainty here in the united states you mentioned foul play donald trump is already claiming fraud saying he'll challenge this legally in the supreme court do we know what exactly he's going to contest there. well from what he said so far he doesn't believe that there should be any vote counting still going on today that's we what he said ahead of election day when he 1st went out and spoken to the cameras he says that he doesn't believe that there should still be voting going on while at that moment in time there was no longer

any voting going on the voting has ended it's all a question of which mail ballots can be counted where the being postmarked by the 3rd of november is enough is acceptable and there are varying laws in different states here in the united states this is nothing new everybody who is involved in the process knows that and if he says he's taking this to the seemed pretty obvious thing that because he secured a majority for conservative leaning judges that but that's not the process i the fact of the matter is that if there are very very close margins in some states one percent 0.5 at least the other side has the right to demand recounts so we're still quite a bit of a way down the road. way from actually going straight to the constitutional court he's overstating what powers he would have their to go straight to the supreme

court here in the united states because i thank you very much as the political editor in washington. well after 4 years of america 1st many here in europe had hoped to wake up to a different tent clearer out germany's no about what can. the bonus talks foreign affairs committee and a contender to lead chancellor merkel's christian democratic union party with this reaction saying germany is not prepared for 4 more years of working with trump and a 2nd election victory would challenge us fundamentally in a way in which we are not prepared we've got alarms also sounding in brussels this from a member of the european parliament gave hope looking at the chaos across the atlantic he says i'm more certain than ever that europeans are stronger together in an uncertain world whatever the outcome the e.u. needs to take its destiny into its own hands and in scotland 1st minister nicola

sturgeon with a clear rebuke of trump's premature claim a victory the good luck america she says sentiment of a of a last night seems even more in this morning crucial hours and days ahead for the integrity of us democracy let's hope we start to hear the voices of republicans who understand the importance of that. sampling from the twitter sphere for more let's bring in brussels bureau chief out xander phenomena and she's standing by for us there and parliamentary studios we've got. julia dally there good to see you both gentlemen start with you we've got some reaction already coming in from brussels this is something europe is looking at clearly very closely must be some concern in brussels this morning. well yes indeed terry i i think that it's fair to say that the majority of those who express

express their opinions or feelings about what is going on in the united states the majority of them it's very concerned some of them seem to be deeply shocked even though we got quite a diplomatic statement from the commission. diplomatic burrill said on twitter that we are still waiting for the results but the remains determined to continue to working on a good relationship with the united states but very remarkable one of his informal advisors when stan took on twitter saying that it's not about a biden or trump preference anymore it's about democracy rule of law in the united states so those values there are so fundamental for the trans atlantic relationship and there are even calls on e.u. leaders to come together to address what's happening in the united states to speak

with one voice that is of course very difficult for us you leader who took to twitter to comment on what's happening in the u.s. was then yes prime minister and he congratulated donald trump saying that he's. pretty much there and that was quite unusual and certainly he is in the minority here. julia berlin is beginning to react to we already heard from the head of the foreign relations committee there in the bundestag but the german government also just issued a statement what they have to say. we are currently waiting for that statement as the press conference is still happening right now we heard earlier today from vice chancellor all of charlotte's and he expressed worry and he said that all votes in the u.s. should be counted before the election can be settled can be say finished he said that citizens all have

a right to see their votes influence the final result we also saw a defense minister and head of c.d.u. party here and they got can come of us say that the situation in the u.s. is explosive and that there could be serious developments in the next few hours or days and there is a bit of unease here in germany too the remarks that we saw coming from trump claiming that he has in fact already won the election and. on all sides of the political spectrum we have seen concerns regarding what could happen in the u.s. in the next few hours and days ok so we're still waiting on the statement from the berlin government alexander you cover the white house for years and you just move to brussels house how is the transatlantic relationship looking from the perspective where you are now it is the very best shape and that's because of donald trump that he pulled out of the climate agreement he pulled out of the raw nuclear deal he withdrew from their world organization and so from the european

perspective the state of france have plenty of relations is very bad and many here fear that and the over 4 years of donald trump would mean that this existing deficit of trust would become irreconcilable breach between the you and the united states agenda thanks very much xander phenomena there in brussels and julia suddenly here in berlin. now let's get more on the german perspective for regarding this election president trump and chancellor angela merkel have had a truly rocky relationship in the last 4 years or has this left ties between the u.s. and germany you know because chile suddenly reports wiretap even before donald trump became u.s. 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 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 wilt once trump did become president she congratulated him on his election but in typical american style she threw in a subtle dig our. thoughts went. to 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. and.

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 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 it 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. he just wanted to see them eat up on the cheating with food to those 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 the people of very different nationalities have contributed to the strength of the country. therefore these a statements that grown very much counter 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. so the u.s.

presidential election remains too close to kohl with both counting continuing and key states that will decide who wins the white house so far no other president will trump nor his democratic challenger joe biden have clinched the 270 electoral college votes needed to win these southwestern state of arizona is the latest battleground state that's been called it's 11 electoral college votes go to joe biden making it the only state to have flipped parties since the 2016 election but votes are still being counted in the decisive midwestern industrial states including wisconsin with its 10 electoral votes biden has taken a narrow lead there. still has a slim lead in michigan with its 16 electoral votes the biggest prize still remaining pennsylvania with 20 electoral votes for grabs there.

so right now the race to win the electoral college is open with democrat joe biden 238 votes president trumpet 213. well with millions of votes still left to be counted trump has been trying to cast doubt on the outcome even before he addressed supporters he tweeted we are up big but they are trying to steal the election we will never let them do it votes cannot be cast after the polls are closed must be said that there have been very different very few reports of irregularities at polling stations twitter quickly flagged trump's tweet was misleading when he later address supporters made some other claims as well to take a closer look at those let's bring in our own fact checker you. know ship trump said there was quote major fraud and he said he'll be going to the supreme court

can trump challenge the election at supreme court yes sure. that's a very good question 1st of all technically trump cannot bring an election contest directly to the supreme court any challenges to the election have to go through the state courts 1st yale law professor bruce ackerman told d.w. fact checking team before this interview and let's give you some context president trump spoke about the possibility of taking the election to the supreme court before it is in line with this tragedy he tells for weeks now trump claimed repeatedly in the past few months the vote by mail leaves the door open for fraud and to remind us by the time he made his statement this morning of voting had finished however not all votes had yet been counted this is because of 21 u.s. states whose rules xcept ballots after the election day so the final result could well take some time ok no number of states have been called trouble isted

a number of states he said he's won georgia among others that have raised some eyebrows was trump stating facts or just was that just wishful thinking on his part yasha well it was only partly true at the moment president trying to live out his speech the states of florida texas and ohio were cold for the republicans yes but georgia is uncertain until now and we see a very tight race going on there and same for north carolina where he claimed the big victory but it's still not called yet so it's not accurate that the president of the united states calls a state cold if it's not and in the case of pennsylvania trumper claim the same but pennsylvania governor tom wolfe called trump commons a partisan attack on democracy because the counting was and is still ongoing ok i shall want to ask you about that one more story circulating out there regarding the so-called robo calls on election day calls aiming to confuse or deter voters any

truth to that so that. yes we can confirm this these reports there have been robo calls in the state of michigan targeted to residents of the city of flint an area with a large black population we have to say the michigan secretary of state justin benson said these calls were made from an unknown party spreading misinformation like telling voters to stay at home and not to work out and there were also text messages with the same content things like this happened in other states too and now the f.b.i. is investigating the case so it's interesting to see what will be behind all these are terms of voter suppression i should thank you very much our fact checker yasha paper in bob. the world continues turning of course not just in the u.s. so let's take a quick look at some other stories making headlines around the world china has criticized u.s. plans to sell military hardware to taiwan the u.s.

state department approved the sale of 4 sophisticated armed drones on tuesday beijing said the move brutally undermined its sovereignty trying to use taiwan as a breakaway province. if the it is president has ordered the army into tigre a state fuse prize winner that said it's a great people's liberation front it launched an attack on a military base in the region group long dominated ethiopian politics the move has fueled fears that the country could be sliding towards civil war. hurricane it has slammed central america battering homes and causing major flooding and landslides please 3 people have been reported killed in nicaragua and honduras now downgraded to a tropical storm is expected to head across cuba to florida this week and. now returning to our top story the presidential election in the u.s.

of course donald trump's claim to have won the election and his valet to contest the counting of votes as raised the specter of a disputed election. and reports. donald trump versus joe biden both were determined to win the election but neither of them has emerged as a clear winner the u.s. could be in for days even weeks of uncertainty the record number of ballots sent by mail will now become the focus of a theater fight. absentee ballots made it easier for americans to vote and that the $1000.00 pandemic but absentee ballots are also more likely to be delayed slowed down by mistakes or even rejected something that is now dictating offense across the u.s. . we will 1st see fights oh 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 with election day over the clock is ticking 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 developed 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 if there is no clear result for several days or even weeks law enforcement and even the military could be called in to bring things under control and what about another scenario the democrats fear and the president trump himself has refused to rule out at the ballots show the president losing but he refuses to accept the result and tries to hang on to the presidency. well 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 started months ago the democrats and the republicans have amassed an army of lawyers who have already been clashing in court over how and when ballots should be counted now they will push that legal battle as far if it takes to decide the outcome of the election. this is g.w. news from berlin just a reminder of the top story we're following for you this hour of course the u.s. presidential election it remains too close to call despite millions of uncounted votes president trauma's trump is all the claiming victory and alleging vote for all democrat joe biden addressed supporters in his home state of delaware and said it's not up to republicans or democrats to call victory but for the american people

swing states that will decide the election are still counting votes. watching t.v. news coming up next to the point more on the u.s. election there i'm terry marsh thanks. good.

to the point strong opinions clear position on the international perspective some claim. 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 like trump already declared victory and once the supremes to stop the counting. to the point that i'm going to sit next to a lot of g.w. because.

hundreds of lives in my city. where i come from abroad your remains uninformed count me in soft transmitting new ones and form ish and when i was young my country was drawing home from. the war prominent people most people would god that i wanted to see. it was my soul to 2 in one off the lot of just say it's sold out to everyone in the town court and listen to those again. nothing has been from inside my own coffee at into a month a lot of them. even not i caught us with a twit of. my choice this card because you've been there

where you told transmitted the truth. when it was a question homage and i want. to tell you. it's tense it's exciting and it's disturbing america has voted in a momentous presidential election that has pitted republican incumbent donald trump against democrat challenger full of vice president joe biden welcome to the point. well the turnout has being huge with long lines in many places across the country president trump's showing has been unexpectedly strong and he has shocked many like claiming that he is the winner and that he will now go to the supreme court claiming major for a moment but joe biden has also told his supporters that he's confident of victory

close although still being counted in a process that can take hours or even days our question on to the point is us election and when it is. good. good. good. work well joining me here in the studio osredak david villa up from the german marshall fund hussein says there is no landslide for any of the candidates but trump ism is here to stay and a warm welcome to 2 steady c. britons from d. w.'s u.s. election team her opinion of trump victory cause destroy american democracy as we know it's also with us is. shows a function so in us journalists and lawyers. every us state has until december the

end to finish counting votes trump on the supremes coal must comply with federal law. thank you very much for being with us here today here on d w stacey off t w i'd like to begin with you because you have been up all night so i know collecting impressions of what's been going on remarkable events what's you know what what what stood out for you i think was the most was that the polls are wrong yet again. we can't trust them at the moment something needs to be we reworked because. if you're a democrat for example and you've been told that leading up to this biden has is in the lead and it's going to be a landslide and then all of a sudden you realize that this isn't the case and if you're a black labs matter person or a person who's in the l b g t q community you realize that there is a part of america that does not care about equality and safety for you and that's very scary. that is america failing to go about right i think that

there's a there's many issues involved part of it is education an educational system that focus more on patriotism than on true education and you know clear thought and i think that there are certain people that support trump because they love the tax cuts and then there's other people who actually believe the racist rhetoric that if you're black or brown that you are not as that you are inferior and that the reason why you haven't made it in life is because you're not smart enough and you're not strong enough and it has nothing to do with with institutional racism sudha your initial impressions that i think that the landslide never occurred and whoever wins will win by a small margin so that means that the united states will continue to be sort of polarized and there may be some places that we see. when it comes to certain states but i guess we have to remember that the results are not yet in and it will take

a while for them to be counted and so we have to see how this all pans out and it's not just the white house we also have to see what congress looks like will the senate flip to the democrats and if that happens and president trump does get reelected then congress can be an effective check on the presidency the results and president trump joe is already saying that he is the winner. i mean this is the most undemocratic thing any electoral official could ever say before we've even finished counting the votes. he wants to stop the vote and then he was tweeting out inaccurate information if you were in line when the polls closed you are able out to continue to stay in that line and to cast your vote for him saying any on one of his tweets you know people are voting after polls close that's fraud that's not fraud that's actually how the system works and so i need to rein it in a little bit but donald trump has proven through out his presidency that he there

was no lie too big he was going to shy away from telling and now we're entering a very critical and dangerous moment of our electoral process where on the election night while we know we still have days or weeks to count things he's saying oh stop it it's all fraud. you're saying it's extremely dangerous i mean the system will trump. i mean he's been disruptive throughout his presidency that has been one of his trademarks but is this something does this go still further is he now. moving into a 2nd term to change america completely from what we know well this is what he's been building up for you know he's been telling us for the past couple of months that we couldn't trust our electoral systems that there was going to be fraud that the democrats were going to try to steal the election away from him he's been telling his supporters that they should go you know watch the voters which is really it's nothing more than voter intimidation which is illegal in fact and so the concern now is how much further is he going to go we've always seen he moves

you know it just the temperature gets a little bit hotter a little bit hotter we get used to that a little bit hotter a little bit hotter we get used to that and what we're seeing now is he's trying to say that the results are illegitimate he's trying to get his supporters riled up the problem is i'm sure are still listening to him and standing by as he said in the 1st debate he's really i think at this point knowing there are so many criminal . let's hear what the president himself has to say. we want the load to be used in a proper manner so we'll be going to the u.s. supreme court we want to hold voting just. we don't want them to find any ballots at 4 o'clock in the morning and them for the list ok. thank you very sure. it's a very sad moment to me this is

a very sad moment and we will win this far as i'm concerned we already have. in your capacity as a lawyer which is the usual resource for us to have today at the time tell us what's going to happen next and what the sort of the timetabling of it might be i mean the difficult thing is so there's no you know one system for all the 50 states each of the states votes differently they count their votes differently some states have already counted votes before election day some won't count until after with the absentee ballots but the thing that does bind all states is what's called the electoral count act that says that you know we have voted on november 3rd there are 41 days until the electoral college has to meet that's december 14th and there's what's called the safe harbor provision 6 days before that december 8th which is the date at which all the states have to certify their results so no matter what trump is saying no matter how much he's threatening to go to the supreme court now

the supreme court will be bound by this congressional law it's over 100 years old and we have to respect that. you're not doing it well i mean i think it's it is outrageous what donald trump says about having been victorious already but at the same time i mean i actually think he can say that in a sense because even though he may lose at the end his ideology for the republican party is not going to go away any time soon and the question is because if doll loses badly if he wins that's one thing but if he loses by at you know by a hair line his idea of the republican party will be here to say as well his family i mean he's got your and who are surely looking into future political careers themselves ok let's just before we move on let's listen to want to challenge your job is to say. it's not my place your ground where.

that's the decision of the american period poor but i'm optimistic about this. thing how important is it for the american people to make that decision themselves rather than having the whole months ago to tell you of lawyers and how important is it that they get a clear decision. i think a clear decision now. is not going to happen and we need to take the time we're in the middle of a pandemic there's a reason why so many people were mailing in but their votes their votes there is a reason why there is a backlog millions of of boats have come in and you have people they don't have as much manpower and certain counties and so they're counting as fast as they can but it's better to have it right than to have it fast and this is what i mean when i'm talking about trying to destroy democracy this is each person's voice each person saying what they want and the very idea that the president of the united states

wants to take a where their vote is unconscionable i was so moved when i heard about this harris county texas lawsuit this is the president didn't file this lawsuit but the republican party supports it another republican activists was trying to get 127000 votes resend it because of the way the votes were cast it was illegal according to their to the laws of that county but still they were trying to take away people's votes people who voted early and in good faith it's unbelievable brava has been a huge surge in support of normal child abuse incontrovertibly of us this is what we are seeing many many americans tuning to donald trump as the man that they see their future invested in this at the same time as the prime demick how does it out oh well i actually think that if it weren't for the pandemic doll trumpet of coasted to toward reelection i think many experts are saying that at the beginning

of this year because the economy was doing so well that donald trump had a very good chance of winning reelection now the coronavirus pandemic changed all of that and our country has been you know undergone 3 crises at the same time an economic one a health crisis and also one of race relations in the united states but i suppose his messaging about law and order has you know had some effect on voters to. election before the election and also his attempt to paint the democrats as radical left socialists that must have also had an effect to an extent however joe biden has failed to come up with a lot of what you're saying why is there a problem with joe biden or a problem with the democratic party or what i do think that joe biden has been is the man for the moment for the democratic party in the sense that he's a moderate candidate he can unify the party and you know elections usually general elections are won from the middle not from the extremes so i guess he is the right

man for the moment but instead of it making it just a referendum on president trump perhaps the democrats could have given a little bit more airtime to what they what they want to do i mean that's that kind of got lost in all the noise let's listen to what some 2 voices from ordinary americans you saw let's listen to what you can pick up quick. 5040. maybe very many people. over there mark you're right i'm very frightened for america and very right i love our democracy love america and i don't hate everything to do with the party and i just want to make progress for america and argument. very important. so yellow taxicabs i'm going to see him that was my hometown new york city without

even having to assume who those people you know supported i think the problem that many americans have not been able to grasp at this point is that donald trump is the danger to the american presidency shoot at the nation to democracy to the international world order to peace to stability we've had over 200000 lives lost the pandemic and i think you know if you have to look at it kind of like a cult you know people have been so brainwashed i think is the phrase we're using that at this point they're committed because at this point for them to turn against donald rumsfeld if they are doing and they can sadly of american voters vote for donald trump that is the proportionality is there i mean don't half of registered voters and this is an important other important distinction so it's not half of the nation we have unfortunately i think still many undecided voters perhaps you know tens of millions of undecided voters and a number of disenfranchised voters as well so. yes half of registered voters

perhaps many vote just say i think to be fair joe a lot of these problems were also there before the era of donald trump you know they were just sort of swept under the rug by both republicans and democrats and that's kind of the reason we have dollar trump as well he he you know he campaigned in 2016 as an anti-establishment candidate and it's true you would think that considering where we are right now that. it would be toast for having on election day but obviously there are enough people who think said donald trump is the right person to change things that are not correct about our hate and motivated by racism a lot of people a lot of people yes but not entirely i'm not saying that every everyone is like i said some people are just worried about their bottom line but there are so many people and i know this is my experience growing up in a predominately white suburb where people automatically assume that if i was if you're black that you you didn't really belong you must've been on some kind of

a welfare program or you know if you were in a good academic program oh well you know you were just let and just because of affirmative action it was never because you were deserving or because of your merit it was because you were black and. and they feel like and we're talking about the people that white voters they feel aggrieved and they feel like they're not further along because of some black or brown person that's taken their place they don't seem to realize that they're also part of the problem because they're voting against their interests i am lost how white poor americans can identify more with donald trump than with joe biden that blows my mind you see. you see donald trump is holding the breaths of credential.