Joe Biden was named the next president of the United States at 11.25 a.m. Saturday morning by television networks and the Associated Press as he passed a 30,000 lead in Philadelphia – as Donald Trump played golf.
CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the AP and USA Today all made the call and Fox News followed suit 10 minutes later. Biden will address the nation at 8pm tonight.
Spontaneous celebrations broke out in major cities as people cheered, danced and honked horns.
But Trump refused to accept the call, claiming Biden was trying to ‘falsely pose’ as the winner, vowing to keep challenging results he claims are a ‘fraud’ and creating the potential for weeks of chaos and constitutional crisis.
The 45th president has no immediate plans to invite Biden to an Oval Office meeting, a tradition between outgoing and incoming presidents, CNN reported. Then Barack Obama hosted Trump for such a meeting on Thursday, November 10, 2016, two days after that year’s presidential election.