Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

As it happenedended

Don Jr tests positive, as his father dodges media questions

Follow the latest updates

Gino Spocchia,Danielle Zoellner
Friday 20 November 2020 20:49 EST
Comments
Trump refuses to take questions after prescription drugs presser

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Donald Trump held a press conference on Friday to discuss prescription drug prices, but the moment also included him falsely claiming “he won” the 2020 election while accusing Moderna and Pfizer of working to stop his re-election efforts. The two pharmaceutical companies announced their coronavirus vaccines were 90 per cent or more effective against the novel virus following the election. 

The press conference was actually not a press conference because the president took no questions. His decision not to take questions potentially came after White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany held her press briefing since 1 October on Friday. 

Ms McEnany, who defended Mr Trump’s refusal to concede the election, was heckled by one reporter during the briefing over her inability to accept the election results. She also entered into a verbal spat with a CNN reporter, whom she called an “activist”, after refusing to answer more questions. 

This comes after Mr Trump was told to to move aside by Republican senator Lamar Alexander, who said on Friday that the US president should allow the transition to a Biden administration to take place after more than two weeks of delay. Sources close to the president suggested that his refusal to concede was, in part, an act of revenge on Democrats who investigated Russian interference in his 2016 win over Hillary Clinton. 

And later in the day it was confirmed that the president’s son, Don Jr, had tested positive for coronavirus and was quarantining.

Show and tell time at the Giuliani presser

Giuliani is now showing an envelope and how the opening of an envelope works after calling Joe Biden a “crook”.

The room full of media is standing by for the evidence promised moments ago.

Justin Vallejo19 November 2020 17:17

Giuliani is now outlining their evidence, which includes ‘My Cousin Vinny’

The first example being cited by Giuliani is Republican observers begin denied access – that has been alleged previously.

The second example is inequal treatment of curing ballots in Democrat versus Republican leaning counties – this has been alleged previously.

The third example is 15,000 people in Pittsburgh given provisional ballots after discovering they’d already cast mail-in ballots – this has been alleged previously.

“That is what we call circumstantial evidence of the fraud, the direct evidence of the fraud are the people who will testify that in fact that’s what happened to them. As well as the 50 to 60 witnesses that we have for the way they were treated and were not allowed to inspect the ballots,” Giuliani said.

He is now telling a story from the movie My Cousin Vinny to illustrate the point.

Justin Vallejo19 November 2020 17:25

Jessie Jacob, an employee of the City of Detroit, is star witness who says she was told to adjust dates on mail in ballots

Giuliani said she was “trained to cheat” by Detroit and the state of Michigan.

“I was instructed by my supervisor to address the mail in date of these absentee ballot packages to be dated earlier than when they were actually sent in, the supervisor made that announcement for all workers to engage in that fraudulent practice,” she said in the affidavit.

“I witnessed election workers and employees going over to the voting booth with voters in order to watch them vote and coach them for whom to vote.”

Giuliani read out the passage from the affidavit at the press conference.

“Maybe you can say she’s lying, but you can’t say there’s no evidence, this is what we call evidence. This is direct evidence, not circumstantial,” he said.

Justin Vallejo19 November 2020 17:31

Witness was instructed not to ask for identification or check signatures, she claims

Jessie Jacob said in the affidavit said she was instructed not to ask for identification to confirm identities, to invalidate any ballots, not to look for any deficiency in the ballots, and not to look for any signatures on the absentee ballots.  

“I observed a large number of people who came to the satellite location to vote in person but they had already applied for and submitted an absentee ballot,” she said in the affidavit.

Justin Vallejo19 November 2020 17:35

Jessie Jacob says she was told to back date ballots

She said in the affidavit that on 4 November 4, she was instructed to improperly predate the absentee ballots when the receipt date was after 3 November 3.

Giuliani says this is some of their most significant evidence.

“Because Justice Alito of the Supreme Court instructed Pennsylvania that any ballot that comes in after 8pm on November 3rd 2020 had to be put aside and not opened as there’s a question as to its legality, and its constitutionality… they blatantly disregarded that order,” he said.

Justin Vallejo19 November 2020 17:39

Giuliani says they have 220 affidavits in Michigan

He said 60 swear a truck pulling up to the Detroit centre at 4.30am where they were counting ballots.

 "The people thought it was food so they all ran to the truck. It wasn’t food, it was thousands and thousands of ballots,” Giuliani says.

“Every ballot that they could see, everything that they could hear, these were ballots for Biden. When they saw ballot, these were ballots only for Biden. Meaning they were only down-ticket. Just Biden.”

Two Republican poll watchers and an employee of Dominion (more on that later) estimated there to be 60,000 to 100,000, and that they were triple counted – put into the counting machines three time, Giuliani said that their affidavits swore to.

Justin Vallejo19 November 2020 17:45

Giuliani says Wayne County has 100 affidavits

And that they allege improper counting, counting 3 to 4 times, voting 3 to 4 times, changing and backdating ballots.

He alleges that they’ve identified 300,000 questionable ballots in that county.

Justin Vallejo19 November 2020 17:49

Giuliani says 100,000 absentee ballots In Wisconsin don’t have application

“60,000 ballots in Milwaukee and 40,000 in Madison that as far as we can tell… that don’t have applications. Under the law of the State of Wisconsin, already decided, if there’s no application for the absentee ballot, the absentee ballot is thrown away,” Giuliani says.

Trump ponied up the $3m to pay for the recount in Wisconsin, so the campaign will either sink or swim on whether these claims stands up or not.

Justin Vallejo19 November 2020 17:54

Watch: Rudy Giuliani reenacts ‘My Cousin Vinny’

Still have some popcorn left?

Rudy Giuliani re-enacts My Cousin Vinny at press conference
Justin Vallejo19 November 2020 17:56

Election fraud a communist plot to turn the country into Venezuela, Giuliani says

“You know we use largely a Venezuelan voting machine, in essence, to count our vote, we let this happen we’re going to become Venezuela, we cannot let this happen to us,” he said  

He is referring to the Dominion voting system, more on this shortly.

Justin Vallejo19 November 2020 18:00

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in