"Our founding fathers are probably rolling in their graves right now''.
Donald Trump has falsely claimed victory in the US election and has said he will go to the Supreme Court to try to stop any more ballots being counted.
The President has described the election as a "fraud on the American public" and said he wants all vote counting to stop now.
“This is an embarrassment to our country,” he said.
“We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.”
His extraordinary claims come despite the fact that Votes to determine the results in key swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are still being counted that will decide the election, including hundreds of thousands of postal ballots.
Trump leads in those states - but Joe Biden believes the demographics of the remaining votes favour him
In truth the race is still too close to call, but pre-election fears that Donald Trump may not accept the result if he loses have now become a very real undermining of the ongoing counting process.
Various US media outlets have reacted with shock to Trump's claims.
CNN's Jake Tapper said: “It's undemocratic and false and premature.” “It is not accurate to say that he won.”
While Jim Acosta, also from CNN said: "Our founding fathers are probably rolling in their graves right now. They did not envision an American president delegitimising an election. That's what Donald Trump did a few moments ago. It's historic and it's historically awful."
Fox News's Chris Wallace said: “This is an extremely flammable situation and the president just threw a match into it. He hasn't won these states.”
Senior correspondent Terry Moran said on ABC: "This isn't law. This isn't politics. This is theatre.
"And let's be blunt; it's the theatre of authoritarianism."
He added: "We should be blunt about this ... this is an attempt to end the election illegitimately so that he can maintain power."
Meanwhile on MSNBC, the channel said, "With millions of votes left to count, Trump falsely says he won."
Joe Biden's campaign reacts.
Joe Biden's campaign has also pushed back on Donald Trump's false claims.
Biden's campaign manager says Donald Trump's statement this morning is 'outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect'.
