Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said Wednesday it was “deeply irresponsible” for President Donald Trump to falsely and prematurely claim a re-election victory.
“No, Trump has not already won the election, and it is deeply irresponsible for him to say he has,” Shapiro tweeted early Wednesday morning as votes were still being counted in a handful of crucial swing states.
As of Wednesday late morning, the race between incumbent Republican Trump and Democratic nominee Biden was still too close to call.
Shapiro trended on Twitter as conservatives criticized him and some on the left indicated they couldn’t even believe they were agreeing with him.
Writer Hannah Rose Woods said, “I don’t mean to alarm you but Ben Shapiro is the voice of reason.”
Alyssa Milano, too, weighed in, saying, “I’m RT’ing Ben Shapiro. #CountEveryVote #EveryVoteCounts.”
Paul Joseph Watson, a longtime editor at the far-right conspiracy platform InfoWars, however, took the opposite position: “Ben Shapiro (2016 Never Trumper) immediately counter-signalling Trump on election night. If you’re not awake to this fraud by now, you never will be.”
He added a few vulgarities about Shapiro.
In a late-night speech to his supporters, Trump fraudulently declared a victory in the presidential race, baselessly said Democrats were trying to steal the election and added that he would take the issue to the Supreme Court.
“This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election,” Trump said, while also wrongly claiming victories in key battleground states that had not been called yet.