Legal Commentary

The results tonight have been phenomenal and we are getting ready? I mean, literally we were just all set to get outside and just celebrate something that was so beautiful, so good... We won the great State of Ohio. We won Texas, we won Texas. We won Texas. We won Texas by 700,000 votes and they don?t even include it in the tabulations. It?s also clear that we have won Georgia.... They can?t catch us. Likewise we?ve clearly won North Carolina....They can?t catch us.... We?re up 690,000 votes in Pennsylvania, 690,000. These aren?t even close. This is not like, ?Oh, it?s close?? With 64% of the vote in, it?s going to be almost impossible to catch....

Almost impossible. He's not lying and saying his victory is certain. He's giving a dramatic speech that makes you feel that a great victory has been won, but he still acknowledges that the outcome could change. 

We?re winning Michigan.... I said, ?Wow.? I looked, I said, ?Wow, that?s a lot.?... And we?re winning Wisconsin. And I said, ?Well, we don?t need all of them. We need??... We had such a big night.... And all of a sudden I said, ?What happened to the election? It?s off.? And we have all these announcers saying what happened? And then they said, ?Oh.? Because you know what happened? They knew they couldn?t win so they said, ?Let?s go to court.? And did I predict this, Newt? Did I say this? I?ve been saying this from the day I heard they were going to send out tens of millions of ballots. They said exactly, because either they were going to win or if they didn?t win, they?ll take us to court.... This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election.

So far, so good. Then he springs a big rhetorical move, and he'll be criticized ? or called a genius ? forever: 

Frankly, we did win this election. We did win this election. So our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this nation. This is a very big moment. This is a major fraud in our nation.

Many people will say that's where he went too far. He is fighting the battle. He could have said he intended to make sure there is no fraud in counting the remaining ballots, the hundreds of thousands of legitimate mailed-in ballots. 

But he declared that there "is a major fraud." It depends on what the meaning of "is" is. 

It might be sloppy language spoken spontaneously and a bit off. You can't really tell what "This" refers to in "This is a major fraud." He might simply have meant that anything other than counting the genuinely legal ballots would be a major fraud, which is obviously, absolutely true. 

He gets himself back on track and aligns himself with sober procedure and submission to the law:

We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we?ll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop.

All voting must stop. Everyone agrees with that! 

We don?t want them to find any ballots at four o?clock in the morning and add them to the list.

He's saying no cheating. Don't make new ballots. Just count the ballots that are legal.  

Okay? It?s a very sad moment. To me this is a very sad moment and we will win this. And as far as I?m concerned, we already have won it. 

ADDED: He was trying to create an atmosphere in which it will feel that when the Democrats fight for their side, they will seem to be overreaching, looking for ways to cheat. I think the Democrats would deploy the same rhetoric if the tables were turned. And it's only rational strategy for Biden supporters to express outrage at Trump's premature assertion of victory and his calling the counting of legal ballots a fraud. This is the fight we are in the middle of now, and I'm going to stand back and watch what happens without getting suckered into this emotionalism.