It is worth repeating over and over again: the votes being counted now in PA, MI, GA and elsewhere were cast and delivered to officials before or on Election Day. These are not the late-arriving votes Trump attacks. (That are, by the way, legit and allowed in many places.)
I have no information other than this, but I am told JBA is on lockdown right now due to reports of an active shooter. Another reporter and I are in a shuttle van that is being held due to situation.
The VP had already left base on Marine 2.
Democratic House gains keep growing and the most favorable Senate map for one party in a century could end up close to a status quo reshuffling.
This was not a split decision election.
I've said this before, I'll say it again. I am a white dude on the radio, and no one has EVER tweeted at me critiquing my voice. Yet literally all of my female colleagues get constant criticism for how they speak or sound. It's BS.
Real talk: today has probably been the most hopeless I have felt about all of this since it began. Particularly paralyzed about what to do about child care. (Not asking for sympathy - just being honest because I think this happens to everyone at different points.)
Mitch McConnell, who blocked an Obama Supreme Court nomination because it was an election year, says in a statement less than 50 days before the election: "President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate."
To be clear, as the person covering Joe Biden's campaign for NPR, there is absolutely NO discussion in our newsroom right now on how we should frame his win or what we should call him, if and when PA is called for him.
The president is not conceding and claims he won.
But as major news outlets call the race for Biden, we are seeing world leaders congratulate the president-elect.
Hi. It me, the campaign reporter who also spent several years literally only reporting on Pennsylvania and fracking. There are a LOT of things us national reporters are oversimplifying and dumbing down here. Hold onto your butts for a thread.
I’ve been covering presidential elections since 1976 and the difference between vote tallies on Election Day and the new data from mail votes is nothing short of stunning. Americans who are suspicious have a right to that sentiment. I am suspicious.
Should we start a pool on which
@npr
reporter’s kid will be the first to inadvertently end up on air as we all broadcast from home? The Abner Award, ala Cokie Roberts’ famous basset hound.
The vote-counting happening now is.... exactly what we knew and reported would happen. This is legitimate vote-counting, of ballots that were returned before or on Election Day.
Told by a WH official that the four cabinet members who traveled back to JBA with Harris tonight - Buttigieg, Cardona, Fudge and Regan - are all safely off base.
America has seen more covid infections and deaths than any other nation.
Unemployment is at its highest level since the Great Depression.
Nearly every city in the country is the site of angry protests.
And tonight peaceful protestors were gassed for a presidential photo.
12 years ago Joe Biden came to PA to sell a stimulus plan, & I decided to ask a hard-ass question to impress another reporter I just met.
She and I are now married, despite her not being impressed by that Q, & today as Biden sells another stimulus in PA I am riding along!
The most important breaking news in our lives: Joshua Francis Detrow showed up yesterday! We are all happy and healthy - though he's not quite sure what exactly is going on.
We are keeping the toddler home from child care as a precaution since I was in the debate hall. So, pausing from news gathering for five minutes to lead a parade through the basement.
#2020
1) DOG!
2) notable that while president was claiming fraud (with no proof at all), McSally did not undermine the vote-counting and concedes graciously.
3) also, this dog.
Congrats to
@kyrstensinema
. I wish her success. I’m grateful to all those who supported me in this journey. I’m inspired by Arizonans’ spirit and our state’s best days are ahead of us.
Guards stopped the shuttle reporters take from the terminal. They had rifles out and searched our van.
Again, Harris and SGOTUS left already in Marine Two. We have asked for updates on the cabinet members who were also on the flight: Cardona, Buttigieg, and Fudge.
ALL KEY INFO IN ONE TWEET (since seeing stuff reposted out of context)
-Joint Base Andrews is on lockdown due to armed individual
-VP & several cabinet officers had just landed here after trip to Selma but all are off base safely
-Still waiting on clear info re: scope of this
If, on Super Tuesday, you had told me that on this day 2 years later I’d be reporting on a battle at a nuclear power plant, and that the entire time in between would have been a global pandemic… well then I would have had a lot more to drink at the
@HotelVermont
bar.
.
@FLOTUS
just met Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska, in Uzhhorod, Ukraine.
It was Zelenska’s first public appearance since the war began.
Biden was in Ukraine for about two hours.
I have a lot of opinions about what's happened at NPR this week, and I’ll keep most of them in-house. But I’ll say this: going public to torch your workplace, then doing media hit after media hit to continue torching it, is not a thing you do when you have good-faith intentions.
Media New Year’s resolution: when someone makes a nuanced critique of President Trump, and President Trump responds by insulting that person, let’s please stop characterizing the exchange as a “feud”.
(That fills my pontificating quota for this month, thanks!)
Gillibrand on floor right now, putting this in broad terms: "Do we value women in this country? Do we listen to women? ...Or do we just disbelieve them as a matter of course?"
At a certain point, given that she’s the number 3 Republican in the House, ...maybe we can all stop leading with the fact that Liz Cheney is Dick Cheney’s daughter?
.
@MilesParks
started with a critical fact-check: the votes being counted right now were NOT late votes. They were delivered on or before election day, and are being counted slowly because PA counties couldn't start processing until Tuesday.
If your name is Brookleigh and you live in Alabama, PSA you keep giving people my cell phone number!
I am concerned you won't have the details for this upcoming boudoir photoshoot you booked, among other things.
My fully-vaccinated parents, who spent so much of the past year isolated and extremely cautious, just sent video of my mom doing the YMCA between innings at a Spring Training game.
Biden just toured his childhood home in Scranton - the one he talks so much about in speeches. I asked him what he was thinking about inside on a day he could become president. “My mom.”
Pope Francis called Joe Biden today.
I will use this moment to admit that in 2015 I waited by side of road to see Francis' motorcade go by during his DC visit, waved excitedly, then... realized ten min later I had been accidently waving at Joe Biden.
My mom - getting vaccinated - was our surprise time stamp today, and I’m really, really dwelling on the amount of family / coworker collaboration that went into this without my knowledge.
Well here's a first.... I am broadcasting from a Delaware hotel room, and just now right before I went on air, it became clear the folks in the room next to me probably aren't tuned into the convention.
@TommyAdams
@ayesharascoe
Ayesha is an excellent reporter, and one of the best parts of our podcast. Your thread is mean, incredibly condescending, and on top of all that it’s dead-wrong.
This is the third campaign event I have been to today. Biden and Buttigieg each had a couple hundred. Sanders campaign says there are 3,000 people here in Cedar Rapids.
Another contrast: the Biden campaign also contacted reporters who traveled with Biden and Harris last week ahead of this announcement, to let them know of possible exposure.
The Biden campaign’s decision to reveal exactly who tested positive and when — and announce the last negative test for Kamala Harris — as well as the fact that it is currently doing contact tracing all appear in sharp contrast to how the White House handled things a few weeks ago
Will point out again that the best understanding of the president's definitions here seem to be that a vote for Trump is "legal" and a Biden vote is "illegal."
THE OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED INTO THE COUNTING ROOMS. I WON THE ELECTION, GOT 71,000,000 LEGAL VOTES. BAD THINGS HAPPENED WHICH OUR OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO SEE. NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WERE SENT TO PEOPLE WHO NEVER ASKED FOR THEM!
OLD MILLENNIALS TRIUMPHANT - I have just been informed one of the ways we have stayed on air is because someone is BURNING CDs of our segments.
This means more to me than any other emo burned CD I’ve been given in my life.
Mixed, weird feelings wandering around an empty NPR, wearing 2 masks and an electronic tracer, as I work on a feature looking back at a year ago tomorrow.
BUT - I also learned WAFFLE WEDNESDAY STILL EXISTS AT OUR CAFETERIA.
Last tweet on today’s Great NPR Tech Meltdown: I went from hosting right into toddler-wrangling, so here’s a post-bedtime cheers to every
@NPR
colleague around the world who scrambled to keep us on the air today.
#wemakenpr
.
@NPRinskeep
hit 20 years of hosting Morning Edition today. And since this website has been so filled with critiques of NPR (🙃), I will just take a moment to say how much I admire what Steve does every day.
So happy for Tam! A BIG week for new
@nprpolitics
babies! Maybe Gibson and Josh will co-host a hologramcast about the 2048 presidential election. (Between now and then, maybe a joint bday party or two)
So...something big has changed since we taped the
@nprpolitics
podcast yesterday afternoon (and I’m not talking about the release of the Comey memos). Welcome to the world Baby Gibson, born at 1 AM and weighing in at 7 pounds exactly.
One of a handful of people at
@NPR
right now... walked by the Tiny Desk and decided it had been too long for the world to go without a Tiny Desk Concert.
Went with the song we have consumed 1.6 million times at home this pandemic.
@nprmusic
.
For Democrats, the winds have shifted and the Riders of Rohan have arrived at Pelennor Fields: Joe Biden is ahead in states that would give him 270 electoral votes.
Finally, having kept you this long, I present the greatest story I will ever report. It was about about people who hunt for rattlesnakes near fracking sites.