Trump tweets ‘I WON THE ELECTION’ and is immediately corrected by Twitter

It comes just a short while after a Trump tweet that appeared to admit, for the first time, Joe Biden’s victory

Another tweet from Donald Trump has been marked by Twitter as incorrect, after the president on Sunday continued his attempts to undermine the result of the US election, claiming he was victorious.

Just before midnight in Washington, Mr Trump wrote a short message on Twitter that simply said: “I WON THE ELECTION!”

The message, a straightforward claim of victory without even the context of suggesting there was voter fraud, sparked a warning from Twitter that read “official sources called this election differently”. 

It appears to be a new and more forthright response from Twitter, which has previously marked any dubious claims from the president — most of his tweets since the election, in truth — as “disputed”. The social media site added a link from Mr Trump’s tweet to sources that project Democrat Joe Biden as the election winner. 

Mr Trump’s latest tweet is being seen as an attempt to take back an apparent acknowledgement that Mr Biden won the White House. Without referring to his rival by name, he tweeted: “He won because it was RIGGED”.

The post was quickly interpreted as being the president’s first admission that the Democrat had indeed won — prompting a flurry of tweets in which Mr Trump made clear he would keep disputing the result. 

“He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA,” Trump tweeted. Later he added “I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!”

The Trump campaign has filed several lawsuits across the country, alleging widespread voter fraud, especially in the swing states that turned the election in favour of Mr Biden. However, Mr Trump hasn’t provided any proof so far, and both international and domestic election observers have stated there were no known major irregularities.

President-elect Biden defeated Mr Trump by winning back a trio of battleground states: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and topped the 270 electoral vote threshold to clinch the presidency. Mr Biden so far has 78.8 million votes, the most ever by a winning candidate, to Mr Trump’s 73.1 million.