On Tuesday, network host Chris Hayes criticized the Electoral College shortly before MSNBC called the election for former President Donald Trump.
However, he also acknowledged Trump was the winner under this system.
I think it’s pretty clear. I think the writing has been on the wall, and, you know, one of the jobs that we all have in the media is to be truthful with people and transparent. We’re very transparent about the process that brought us to this point. I’ll just say this as we’re preparing for Trump to take the stage, you know, Steve is going through the numbers. We have this very funky and terrible system called the Electoral College that decides elections in a way that’s totally different than any other election in the United States is decided and the way anything is decided anywhere else in the world. We should scrap it. From the perspective of basic democratic legitimacy, which is something I’m concerned about and something we talk a lot about on this network, it looks possible that Donald Trump might emerge with the popular vote majority.
We won’t know for a long time, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. The Electoral College looks strongly in his favor. And if that is the case, um, if he has won the election, then he has won the election. And the reason I say that is because we’ve spent many years talking about democracy, its vibrancy, and the importance of the peaceful transfer of power. We had a violent insurrection staged by the man we’re waiting to speak here where his followers assaulted police officers and attempted to essentially steal power away from the majority of the country that voted for Joe Biden. It’s really important to note that while I believe that institutions have failed dramatically in putting us in the position we are, including the Supreme Court and other institutions, the republican party, um, that if he won, then he won. That’s what the Constitution says. It’s what the current constitutional order says. It’s what democratic majorities and the Electoral College has said, and that means we’re in, we’re in a new world for this country, but the sort of preservation of American democracy and the constitutional order begins as an ongoing process anew tomorrow.
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