Rebuilding a strong transatlantic partnership. Hello there welcome youre watching r. T. International where theres one story dominating today the u. S. President ial election much tighter than everybody was expecting and still no results so lets bring you what we know so far and bring you up to speed with the race is tight as you can see with biden already securing 238 electors and trump having the backing of 230 the magic number that they need is 270 that would get them into the white house and this is all down to what is called the Electoral College system in the United States because each state has a fixed number of electors based on the number of People Living there and whichever candidate secures a simple majority of votes in each state does win the only exceptions of maine and nebraska which are allocated electors based on local district. Heres what it looks like so far on a state by state basis many of my old. States from pennsylvania wisconsin michigan and georgia are still counting preliminary results they do indicate a tight race as we said and both joe biden and his rival donald trump have addressed their supporters to saying that they are sure that they will come out on top. Not only we believe were on track to win the selection were going to win this thank you thank you thank you. We were getting ready to win this election frankly we did win this i. We will win this stores him already. Well traditionally some states are things Republican Party strongholds while others are strongly tied to the Democratic Party but in swing state both parties are thought to have a chance of winning and so mary is seen as a bellwether is too indicative of which candidate will win the National Race trump biden hinting at victory to be heard despite the county being ongoing it even suggested voter fraud to a few hours ago so lets get the latest now and talk about all of this a bit further with that youve done a few joins us again in studio been busy all day looking at the results as they come in but its clear isnt it the swing states in particular the upper midwest and those 3 states there absolutely and it seems that in this election the even more important than in the previous one were talking about michigan wisconsin and pennsylvania these are the 3 states everybody is looking at right now but a lot of people the already seem to have their minds made up and especially when it comes to the candidates themselves donald trump has outright claimed his victory just blatantly in a bald man or in a signature bald manner of his as a. As we all know joe biden hes tried to choose his words carefully but still he has already thanked all his supporters and saying that he is on track to winning this election and really they both seem very eager to claim these 3 states or at least some of them as there is as the day the job was done and everything is sealed there but it is not over at all because it can it can flip Lake Michigan michigan donald trump has had a slight advantage over biden it has since flipped and now its vice versa but when it comes to the people to the supporters they are ready to go to the very end because a lot of people have their minds made up and donald trump it looks like he he has already see. Hes already seeing himself as a victim as someone who has won the elections and he has already threatened legal action if things dont go his way. We want the lord to be used in a proper manner so well be going to the u. S. Supreme court we want all voting just. We dont want them to find any ballot said 4 oclock in the morning in the lives ok. You talking about all voting stopped i mean the assumption is that hes talking about postal ballots still coming in. Many people assure you that they could perhaps favor the democrats when theyre all counted but the issue isnt it is where more be the deadline for those votes to be counted and. Presumably is afraid even if say for example today the same issue of one begin person vote when these 1000000 votes are counted he could have actually been lost and its a process that could drag on because he could contest this in the Supreme Court absolutely some projections are saying that for instance pennsylvania could end up counting all the mail in ballots up until friday and trumped by saying that he doesnt want these ballots he wants the ballot count to stop here is. So many people here if you look online if you look at what pundits are saying political experts and other prominent names they are calling him a fascist and authoritarian leader an autocrat there are well there are some very harsh names flying around because of his call to stop the voting this is something that people are saying the most undemocratic thing a president could ever say and joe bidens camp has already fired back by saying that if donald trump takes these matters to court they are ready to use their team of lawyers to world to fight for their cause to fight over this election have a listen. The president s statement trying to shut down counting of julie cost ballots was outrageous unprecedented and incorrect and naked effort to take away democratic rights never before has a president s will to strip americans of their voice it will not happen counting will continue until every duly cost vote is counted. So as both leaders as both candidates i should say are juking it out online or on the podiums of people actually taking to the streets weve already seen windows boarded up in the run up to this election as store owners and just Business Owners expected violence expected rioting potential clashes they werent wrong even the Election Night has seen some clashes in chicago and in the washington d. C. People took to the streets there have been some scuffles so there is that so as basically as trump and biden are ready to duke it out in court his diehard supporters are ready to go on the barricades and literally fight each other in the streets and this is all the result of the past 4 years as both groups of supporters as both from fans and democrats they have been boarding together they have been coming closer but at the same time they have been drifting so far apart and you would have thought that 2016 has seen the emotions maxed out but how wrong it turns out to be to think like that because now in 2020 it seems emotions are flying even higher and people are even more adamant even more at each others throats fuel to the fire here too is that this race is much closer than everybody was expecting so it doesnt matter i suppose which side youre on. You know you could have easily won this and maybe you would think that something went on maybe it was trumps fault and what hes saying is the reason why he lost maybe its because of the postal violets and what biden said is why the republicans lost theres a lot of a few can go on the fire simply because this race is so close youre absolutely right with saying that this is fuel to the fire and both statements by both joe biden and donald trump they are adding this fuel theyre adding gasoline to these flames and at the same time as ive said during the past 4 years people have been living in the echo chambers and now all of this this is the result of them being so sure socalled. Wouldnt you know trump haters have been sure that biden that it was going to be a blue wave all across the United States which obviously didnt happen so the i live it so far they live it online on twitter in the comments and so on they just they they didnt expect the race to be so close that its a nail biter race and same thing goes to some of the die hard Trump Supporters who just they just dont want to see their candidate lose and they expected a red wave and they were wrong too and so right now all this anger and discontent and disappointment it stays so far online more to a larger extent but in the coming days as more votes are counted as both sides make more statements and insight more emotion more anger among their supporters this could very well end up on the streets what were the key issues do you think people were voting on often it stand to what ends up in your own pocket what potentially could make you financially better off as a as a voter is it is simple is that a paper just voting about the economy is the way the lockdown code would have been handled well absolutely it seems the response to the new coronavirus was one of the main defining policies one of the main one of the defining things as to who to vote for as well was economy as well as Foreign Policy and many many other issues but thing is that for many people it doesnt matter what trump really says whatever he says whatever he does whatever he does a lot of people would just take that as incompetence and vice versa so its almost like a religious conflict now if you put it so some people share a religious belief that whatever trump does hes incompetent hes a bad president and thats why they might expect might have expected a blue wave because they would have thought that well now everyone has had 4 years to see with their own eyes how poor of a present. How bad of a President Trump was but that didnt happen thats why they were so they are now so disappointed to see this race so close and really could go each way it could go any other way could we could see trump both trying and biden certainly at this stage in as we were saying earlier i dont know potentially for months i mean if this goes all the way to the Supreme Court if you look at the last time this happened 20 years ago al gore and george w. Bush 35 days we had to when we could see a repetition of that possibly even longer given that trump would do everything in his power to stay in the white house and joe biden would do everything in his power to get into the white house once again but now not as Vice President but as president of the of the United States and again they have armies of people ready on standby to support both candidates and so things are looking very bright in that sense because its like when both sides are ready to fight nobody is ready to back down nobody will be back down so theres no other path from here on other than and collation yet it doesnt look like somebodys going to concede defeat essentially you know as you know as things stand ok you go thank you very much with. The afternoons r. T. G. Goshi done. Now is there have already been demonstrations that side the why has the head of the final Election Results artist on quarter looks now the growing divisions as we were talking about there within American Society. It was all high hopes and big promises back in 2016 when donald trump took his place in the white house the nation was already divided by race gender class you name it and the country needed a hero now its time for america to get behind the wounds of division have to get together. All republicans and democrats and independents or cry. This nation i say it is time for us to come together as one United People turned out trump never came to be that knight in shining armor. 20 twentieths president ial election seasons looked more like an all out war on the streets more than anything mishandling of the Pandemic Response and the economic crisis but most significant was the brutal killing of george floyd that sparked outrage across the nation and even calls to defund the police altogether. And instead of trying to unite people americas dividing lines became part of both parties political strategies on the one hand bite and then the democrats sold themselves as allies of the socalled peaceful protests which lets be honest were not so peaceful from us in this for instance peacefully protest. Not a bad way to dip your toes into the more radical left and black voter pools but on the other hand you have trump who decided to play the tough guy calling anti racism protesters vandals and anarchists trump sent federal troops to put down uprisings in cities a move that won support from a number of Police Unions and people who didnt want to see their white picket fence neighborhoods ruined now the law and order doctrine also embolden some of trumps more radical supporters so that seeing armed right wing militias. An anti for freely Walking Around the streets of American Cities became a new reality and one of both candidates done to fix all this point the finger is also what it is is the raese whats going on and he doesnt want to see law and order because he cant because hell lose his radical left supporters proud of i always stand back and stand by but ill tell you what ill tell you what somebody has got to do something about anti fair and the left because this is not a right there is a direct this is. Not what its about this is the radical left would you she was on both sides of the political spectrum weve got armed groups white nationalists proud boys right wing militias and tea for the whole bunch so what exactly will happen when the election is over well everyone just sit down and decide to accept the results. Ok lets discuss that point a bit further now with the israeli former israeli ambassador to the us danny ayalon he joins us now good afternoon tea thanks for your time at the end of our package there we suggested that will anybody actually accept the result no matter what it is today just feel that this election has the polarized us society. Oh absolutely this is the clear many frustrations of the polarity of the American Society the American Society is a broken one. I would say that the tensions over there probably has not been as high or tense maybe since the civil war more than 150 years ago and you have 2 americas you have the Bidens America and that trumps america and they have almost nothing in common so it is no surprise that the end of the day. Come to the Supreme Court to make the decision one of the key issues you think that will decide this election in terms of how people are voting and what sort of policy they making up their minds. Well i would say the trumps supporters obviously want to see trump out and more than any policy or any vision they are just not trump. Clearly biden did not really show or depict any kind of vision or specific policies it was just a corona and not trump. The trump people they are mostly distraught by cases of vandalism like in pennsylvania in philadelphia last year and before that in there was consonant of course in new york and. California so its like the law and order candidate against the more liberal except the law and order candidate is the incumbent so basically he. And i would say bears some responsibility and maybe this is part of the reason why these elections are too close to call. Obviously a lot of people outside the United States are extremely interested in what goes on for obvious reasons as a former israeli ambassador to the u. S. What have you made of Donald Trumps policies in the middle east in particular recently brokering these normalization talks between israel and the arab states. Sure well there is no secret at all that dont trump. Has been and still is the most pro israeli president ever and he have the evidence to show so if he is reelected of course we will not see any change however by then also his is an israel supporter i had the pleasure to meet him when i was in washington he was then the Ranking Member of the Foreign Relations committee in the senate and he always was pro israel and he. Almost every time boasted about it and if you see these record 47 years in the senate and in all these years there isnt even one time that he voted against israel so i think that. Possible biden presidency will be markedly different. Trumps but when it comes to Foreign Relations and specifically in the middle east im not sure there will be much different certainly by the who would love to see more normalizations more Peace Process between israel and the moderate sunni countries he would want to see tollers in tehran kept at bay the same thing with hizbollah. And hamas and the major change will be visibly. The west bank and gaza most of the west bank where he will not see favorably extension or expansion of israeli communities in its areas and just lastly on the point of iran and i know that biden says he would like to rejoin that nuclear deal that the us subsequently left. Do you think thats a signal that hell go easy on iran or or more easy compared to the trump present just a simplistic. Well i just happened to speak to one of bidens visors about the week ago and this issue of. Came up and the answer i got about this policy on iran was the resumption or going back to the j. C. B. Away the iran deal is not automatic and he emphasize its not automatic the iranians will have to make some adjustments to and i would say that quite interestingly by the may have more force or more power to force the run ins to break down and have a more i would say intrusive and stronger agreement because biden can bring the europeans along or trump is pretty much isolated the europeans who will join biden on closing the circle and the ring around iran why do you think the europeans would tell you that if doing things had to. Stand for night contributions tonight might she think the europeans would be more came to buy. Because its also a threat to them you see the. Iran deal does not include Ballistic Missile testing and interestingly enough and maybe not interesting lee after the iran deal was signed there was a peak intensification of Ballistic Missile testing in tehran and also to. The extent that it can reach europe all the unrest that we see anywhere in the middle east and also in the europe itself actually the iranians have been caught red handed in in germany in brussels and other places so there is no sympathy for. Iran in europe and they i think would like to start relations with by them on the good side and this is a common interest where they can really cooperate and have a united front ok mr look well have to leave it there we dont see the south and i know its tiny island a former israeli ambassador to the United States thank you. Ok lets bring you up to date then on the race so far for the white house it is pretty tight as weve been saying with biden already securing 238 electors and trump having the backing of 213270 is the magic number that you need to remember that the total both need to reach in order to secure the White House Well it all comes down to the Electoral College system its not the absolute popular vote it is the Electoral College system each state does have a fixed number of electors based on the number of People Living there and whichever candidate secures a simple majority of votes in each state does win the only exceptions of maine and nebraska which allocate electors based on local district votes well heres what it looks like so far on the state by state basis just look at the colors many of my old votes and some key states from pennsylvania to this constant michigan still counting counting stop there in georgia. On wednesday morning. There is more International Reaction to be election coming in from german ministers to the Foreign Policy chief relations with europe have soured under donald trump with more his arties peter all of. Well the e. U. High representative for Foreign AffairsYossi Birrell has said that the United States citizens have voted and whoever fills that seat in the white house after this election the e. U. Will continue to work with them very diplomatic there of course from the e. U. s top diplomat here in germany well the newspapers overnight they went for a couple of headlines so that you would imagine United States has voted the americans have voted on the berlin its items nice and simple from them boxing clever from the tabloid newspaper build they say good look mr president whoever it is saying that whoever takes that job will have the most important political job in the world now when it comes down to germans who german politicians want to see in the white house weve heard from senior figures in Angela Merkels cabinet both the defense minister. And the foreign minister heiko must have pointed out that whoever fills that seat after this election there are some Serious Problems between berlin and washington and those problems arent going to go away. If you like the German Government and Defense Ministry we have to deal with any reality on the ground in the us regardless of who gets to the point the administration points about the need for more german and European Defense spending north stream to relations with russia have also been brought up by the democrats the time is different but in principle the demands are just as tough from that party the relationship between the United States and germany had been one of the closest on the world stage however in the last 4 years since donald trump has come into the white house its seen in and washington often it polar opposite ends of different issues one of the reasons for this is particularly that donald trump doesnt see germany as the political strategic and economic ally as previous president s have done. He sees germany as the United States as being competitive when it comes to trade on many Different Levels now what weve seen is donald trump say to germany you must pay metal money for nato weve seen the United States try and stop the north stream to gas pipeline project that pipeline taking russian gas directly into into germany germany needs that gas for the German Economy german Industry Needs that energy what the United States wants to do is of course they want to sell germany liquefied natural gas from the u. S. Which come in at more expensive price the north stream debacle is also seeing the u. S. Play sanctions on german entities involved with that project something that would have been on thinkable in the past trump said that they want to get rid of him in china they want to get rid of him in iran they want to get rid of him in germany while he was on the campaign trail in pennsylvania one of the things that may be expected of of germany should donald trump win is that lynn step up and fill some of that Leadership Void in the liberal status quo on the world stage of politics. Peter all of reporting ok lets bring you up to date on what the voting map looks like so far the rate is pretty tight with biden already securing 238. 00 electors and from having the backing of 230 they need to reach 270 if one of those manages to do that he will be declared the winner it all comes down to the Electoral College system complicated but well put it like this each state has a fixed number of electors based on the number of People Living there which have a candidate secures a simple majority of votes in each state does actually when the only exceptions are in maine and nebraska which allocate electors based on local district vote doesnt confuse you too much but those are the numbers there that you need to look at biden just ahead he does need to win 270 as donald trump does were looking at swing states because. Thats what is going to decide this years president ial race many of them still too close to call in fact we do know michigan and pennsylvania face severe reporting delays too with no official results likely anytime. Youre watching r. T. International thanks for your company this afternoon of course were across all developments in the United States for many hours to come i expect well get plenty of analysis to you with r. T. Is just coming up to 630. The world is driven by a dream shaped by. The dairy thinks. We dare to ask. Some control for a middle class to. Muslim are very hard working people who want to get ahead that either have some some Health Issues or have some out of strict about luck a full time job wont always pay for a place to live and missing just a months rent can get you a victim to gunpoint if anything bad happens to any thing that just throws your budget off slightly. 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