In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, the day after Election Day, Donald Trump falsely claimed that he won the presidential election against Joe Biden. “This is a fraud on the American public, this is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election, frankly, we did win this election. So our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this national,” he said, calling it a “very sad moment” in American history. Speaking of very sad moments: Trump sayinga he won the election without actually winning is exactly what Bernie Sanders predicted would happen months ago.
To be fair, it’s something many of us could have guessed would happen, but it’s still (depressingly) prescient. The clip comes from the October 23rd episode of The Tonight Show, with the one-time presidential candidate telling host Jimmy Fallon, “You’re going to have a situation, I suspect, in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, other states, where they are going to be receiving huge amounts of mail-in ballots. And unlike states like Florida or Vermont, they’re not able — for bad reasons — to begin processing those ballots until election day, or maybe when the polls close. That means you’re going to have states dealing with perhaps millions of mail-in ballots.” He nailed it.
“It could well be that at 10 o’clock on election night, Trump is winning in Michigan, he’s winning in Pennsylvania, he’s winning in Wisconsin, and he gets on the television and he says, ‘Thank you, Americans, for re-electing me. It’s all over. Have a good day.’ But then next day and the day following, all those mail-in ballots start getting counted, and it turns out that Biden has won those states. At which point, Trump says, ‘See? I told you the whole thing was fraudulent. I told you those mail-in ballots were crooked, and we’re not going to leave office.’ So that is a worry I and a lot of people have.”
Bernie wasn’t right about everything, however: Trump waited until 2:30 a.m., not 10 p.m., to declare himself the victor. His prediction is still going viral.
Bernie’s prediction on the election is spot on so far. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/nMtwlqTd4S
— Predictions (@ppredictors) November 4, 2020
everyone should watch bernie sanders’ explanation of what might happen (has happened? is currently happening?) on election night pic.twitter.com/kYZDwYKNWX
— ellie 🪐 (@eleanorbate) November 4, 2020
Bernie Sanders on The Tonight Show two weeks ago predicted the state of play at this stage in the election *exactly*, even up to the three states we'd be waiting on mail-in ballots from. It's almost eerie #ElectionNight #Elections2020 pic.twitter.com/rT3f83PKFP
— Matt Sterling (@MSterling27) November 4, 2020
https://twitter.com/fIeetswoodmac/status/1323892321100787712
Watch this: @BernieSanders predicting exactly how things unfolded today: #USElections2020 pic.twitter.com/ln7X2wlXSb
— Zeba Warsi (@Zebaism) November 4, 2020