The vote no surprise there either im bored off in berlin this is the day. We will win this and lose far as im concerned we already know its not my place or dollars from the place of the player whos won this election thats a decision of the American People he has cast doubt on the integrity of the entire electoral process surely fors own personal advantage its a disgrace absolutely extraordinary comments from him from a sitting president where the. Historic very successful. I think were going to hear more of this will be. Also coming up in the u. S. President s attacks on the very system that brought him to power it has left lawmakers here in europe speechless and holding their tongue at the same time its looking a little minds and we should all lean sees that democratic elections are allowed to be completed that means they are only when old votes have been counted and also could see it declaring yourself the winner at this stage is something i can see that irresponsible and extremely problematic. To our viewers watching on p. B. S. In the United States and to all of you around the world welcome we begin the day with the u. S. President ial election making history for all of the right and wrong reasons tonight we learned that more than 69000000 votes have been cast for joe biden with that biden is projected to receive more votes for president than any candidate in u. S. History one of these a pearl its of this election that the public may actually want to remember now it is still too early to declare a winner in tuesdays election the balance are still being counted in key states such as pennsylvania and michigan joe biden has a slightly president Trumps Campaign signaling they will demand a recount no that is not what President Trump demanded on Election Night knowing that millions of ballots were still being counted trump demanded that the tallying be stopped he falsely accuse the democrats of trying to steal the election and without authority to do so he declared himself the winner this is a very big moment this is a major for a leader nation we want. To be used in a proper manner. So well be going to the u. S. Supreme court we want to all voting just. We dont want them to find any ballots at 4 oclock in the morning and then at the list as ive said all along its not my place or Donald Trumps place to declare whos wrong is the election thats the decision of the American People but im optimistic about this outcome. Where lawyers for President Trump did not show up at the u. S. Supreme court today the president s faults claims have drawn sharp criticism from both democrats and republicans from former National Security adviser john bolton said the events of tuesday night were unprecedented and unpresident ial the comments president made a few hours ago where he basically said that he was waiting had one but now the election would be stolen from him were some of the most irresponsible comments that a president of the United States has ever made we dont know what the outcome will be its entirely possible could win but he has cast doubt on the integrity of the entire electoral process purely for his own personal advantage its a disgrace what about the legality of President Trumps actions and claims my 1st guest tonight is Michael Morley a law professor at Florida State university his focus is on a white zin and constitutional law professor morley its good to have you on the day let me ask you what went through your mind when you heard President Trump say or declare himself the winner of this election. But its something to have obviously no legal effect a candidate can simply declare victory right we have political norms of concessions and victory speeches but at the end of the day right thats just essentially political speech right its Election Officials who declare who has and has not won an election and of course Election Officials dont declare Election Results until all of the we believe valid votes have been counted and in many jurisdictions all of the legally valid votes arent even necessarily in yet there are many states that allow military in overseas voters for example as long as they have their votes postmarked by election day their ballots can be returned 10 days sometimes even 14 days after election day several other states for domestic absentee voters as long as your votes are postmarked by election day they can be received in the in the days afterwards so there is no basis for for stopping the vote count before all the votes of even received what about the president demanding that the vote counting be stopped i mean does he have any authority any power to order you know the counting to be stopped no absolutely not when we talk about a president ial election as if its a single nationwide event but really because of the Electoral College its operated as a series of 51. 00 separate individual state level of that ends and the district of columbia and within each state the election is conducted by state and local officials pursuant primarily to state law so its not something that the president right as the president is in charge of or has any sort of Legal Authority over. A known sort of finish dissecting the president s remarks from last night President Trump said that his attorney would be taking this whatever this is to the Supreme Court i mean has anything been done that is actionable that needs to be taken to court. Well im in long before election day i mean there were hundreds of cases throughout the nation filed by voters filed by candidates Political Parties dealing with various aspects of the electoral process some of those cases had already made their way up to the Supreme Court particularly there was litigation in pennsylvania where the pennsylvania Supreme Court had suspended certain rules governing the electoral process of the Supreme Court had been asked to step in on an emergency basis before election day it declined to do so so particularly depending on what the vote tallies both with in pennsylvania as well as overall wind up being it certainly is with within the realm of possibility that the Trump Campaign could could return to the Supreme Court and ask the Supreme Court to to revisit its ruling as far as as as far as other states i mean everything again is on a state by state basis you cant go to court and just say have Election Officials stop counting the votes you have to be able to point to some sort of irregularity some sort of problem so if there are legal votes that Election Officials are refusing to count or if there is invalid votes that Election Officials actually are counting you can go to court and get an injunction to ensure that the count occurs properly but just the notion of going to court to say lets end the election now that particularly this soon after election day you know if it were made december where we were starting to brush up against Electoral College deadlines and one of the issues in bush or that would obviously be a somewhat different scenario but theres no rule that says you have to finish counting votes on election day as i said before youre not even going to have all the legally valid votes by the end of election day today the president has tweeted numerous times making false claims that think ballots for joe biden have been found in pennsylvania wisconsin and michigan i think most people would agree that this is certainly not very president ial behavior is it is it abuse of power i mean is the president pushing the limits of whats acceptable and whats legal under his authority. Well you certainly never want to have especially the president of the United States but even more broadly you never want to have a political candidate calling the good embassy of the electoral process into question particularly without some sort of firm cause right if the if if if a candidate if the little game has evidence that theres some sort of irregularity or that there is some sort of fraud then of course our courts are available to to seek relief but in the absence of some sort of actual evidence youre making allegations just trying to preemptively call Election Results into question is exactly the sort of thing that that in so late democratic norms professor Michael Morley joining us tonight valuable insights into the legalities of this never ending election stuart professor we appreciate your time tonight thank you thank you. President trump is the 1st u. S. Leader to actively undermined the very electoral system that brought him to power at least the 1st one in living memory for months he has been claiming with no evidence that the november election would be rigged and he has blamed it on mail in ballots now its important to note that there have been no reports of voter fraud and still president from is demanding legal action the w. C. Museum was gone to has this report. 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 bitter fight. Absentee ballots made it easier for americans to vote amid 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 a bents across the u. S. 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 wont 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 mean 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 were 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 if there was 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 that democrats fear and that President Trump himself has refused to rule out that the ballots show the president losing but he refuses to accept the result 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 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 as it takes to decide the outcome of the election. For my next guest use a former u. S. Ambassador to the always see the organization for security and cooperation in europe he is now with the Carnegie Endowment he joins me tonight from Denver Colorado im happy to welcome back to the day dan baer dance good to see you again let me get your thoughts 1st on the election and the vote count that is still underway. Well i think what we know now and what we hope to has most of us went to bed really late last night is that. Yesterday and obviously the weeks leading up to yesterday when voting was already happening was good for joe biden and the Main Objective of democrats over the last few years has been to remove donald trump from office through a democratic election and it looks very good for joe biden now he is on the past the reaching the critical threshold of 270 electoral votes obviously it wasnt i think many of us had hoped for a clear moral repudiation of trumpets. Which would have entailed a blowout win by joe biden we didnt get that but we got a critical victory and it will mean a new path for america. I believe once the votes have all been counted and obviously we need to wait for all the votes counted but right now it looks very good for joe biden and as he said last night he believes that they are on track and we will wait to see how the votes pan out when they finally all get counted but it looks like from where i sit now you know earlier today you tweeted something in we want to pull that up and show our viewers you wrote that the sadness that you feel is just the idea of 400. 00 plus electoral votes for by slipping away its not the election phaidon still very likely do when its just not with a blowout talk to me about what you meant there i mean it was important for a lot of biden supporters for this not to be just a victory but for it to be a landslide victory right. Yeah and i think not just for biden supporters but also for those who looked at the 2016 election including our friends around the world and wondered whether whether the 2016 election might be explained away some kind of fluke and i think one of the things that we have to own now its the fact that 2016 wasnt a fluke we are unfortunately a divided country with divided news about our past and about how to tackle the Biggest Challenges in front of us in the future but the clear the clear thing is that i think biden is on track to a clear electoral victory and well that means that much work remains in front of us in terms of making the case for our Democratic Institutions and making the case for investing in our society so that we can be strong in the 21st century we didnt get the blowout win that some people were hoping for but i think the 1st step was to win the white house and i think we are in good track joe when the white house i mean one of the things that will see in the in the coming months is the challenges that come with what looks likely to be a divided government in the sense that republicans are likely to retain control of the u. S. Senate and that will change what is possible under under a future by maris administration and will require political negotiations and the white house to work with republicans in the senate to accomplish what needs to be done for the American People and i think that will take time to digest for everyone in the months ahead lawmakers in diplomats here in europe they are shocked worried one leading german lawmaker said today that it doesnt matter who wins now what matters is that our relationship with america is changed forever there are even some talking about a decoupling of germany from the u. S. What do you say to those europeans. You know i think rather than a decoupling of germany and the u. S. Or other European Countries or of the e. U. With the us we need to think about what a future coupling looks like and i think a future coupling has to look like much more of a cooperative effort rather than a senior leader. With junior partners we need we america need germany and others to step up and be advocates for democracy and human rights around the world to be in favor of Good Governance around the world taking on corruption and were not going to be able to do this alone america is not going to cant be left alone to to carry that mantle and so i think what happens Going Forward is that the relationship between the United States and germany between local governments and citizens on both sides of the atlantic has to be reinvigorated and focused on supporting democratic norms on both sides and indeed around the world you know i think theres a lot of work ahead of us on both sides of the atlantic did bear joining us tonight from denver dan its always good talking with you we appreciate your insights thank you. Were german lawmakers have not hidden their preferences in this u. S. Election they will tell you that it would be easier to work with a President Biden than with the President Trump the past 4 years have not been kind to the u. S. German relationship President Trump has repeatedly accused germany of freeloading and not paying its fair share at nato s