Defiant Trump declares victory, promises 'a lot of litigation' ​

A somber but defiant President Donald Trump announced in a hastily-called news conference on Thursday that his campaign believes that they have won all the votes that have been legally cast, and promised "a lot of litigation" regarding the outcome of the election.

"If you count the legal votes, I easily win," Trump said.

Trump harshly criticized the mail-in voting system, as he has all year, and blamed the system for what he viewed as widespread election fraud.

"They want to find out how many votes they need and then they seem to be able to find them. They wait and wait and then they find them and you see that on election night," Trump said.

"It's amazing how those mail-in ballots are so one-sided. They are trying to steal an election. They are trying to rig an election and we can't let that happen," Trump continued.

Trump also blasted what he called "corrupt Democrat machines" in Pennsylvania and Michigan, and blamed them for the process. He also specifically called out the cities of Detroit and Philadelphia, saying that they "cannot be responsible for engineering the outcome of a presidential race, a very important presidential race."

He further promised an aggressive legal challenge to the outcome of several races, and promised that his team would provide evidence of fraud. He specifically claimed that his campaign had found evidence that people had voted in Nevada even though they no longer lived in the state.

Trump's comments come as his margins in several key states appear to be moving in a critical direction. As of the time of publication of this article, his lead in Pennsylvania has shrunk to less than 100,000 votes, as the state continues to count mail-in ballots. Also, as the vote is being finalized in Georgia, Trump's lead in the deep red state had shrunk to less than 4,000 votes. If Trump loses either state, he will likely be mathematically eliminated from contention.