Kellyanne Conway appeared on ABC News during the network’s presidential election coverage Tuesday (Nov. 3) and she said President Donald Trump will be addressing the country in the evening from the White House.
Earlier this week, it was reported that the president will be hosting a viewing party from the East Wing with 400 people in attendance. The former counselor to the president said she would be attending the event, and revealed that Trump is set to address the nation before a winner for the presidential election is announced.
“You will hear from the president tonight, I’m headed over to the White House shortly. We’ll be joined by a couple hundred people,” Conway told ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos. “The president is expected to address the nation later from the East Room of the White House.”
Conway also reflected on what it was like to await the results of the election with Trump in 2016. “We know that you heard from President Elect Trump at about 3 a.m.,” she said. “And that’s before we had this explosion of early voting and mail-in ballots in the year of 2020, the year of uncertainty, why shouldn’t the presidential election be wrapped with uncertainty as well with just a few hours to go.”
“So we’re not in a rush. We’re patient people, I certainly am,” she added. “I know the president, I watched him watch returns in 2016 and 2018. He really gets very quiet, he’s working the phones. People are running in from the war room, giving him data, giving him their best guesses but not their wishful thinking—and I appreciate that. The president was the last one to think he was going to win in 2016.”
Communications Director Alyssa Farah announced Trump will be watching election results in the East Wing of the White House this evening. When asked about absentee and mail-in ballot counting, Farah said that the White House is expecting some delays in results, “especially in Pennsylvania.”
“We’re working with state secretaries of state all over the country who are processing these and have plans in place. Our concern from the outset has been mass mail-in voting when our country just hasn’t dealt with this level of it previously. Like I said, we are confident that we’re going to get to the end game, but we could anticipate some delays, especially in Pennsylvania,” she said.
She also said Trump will make a public appearance in some form “when the ballots are in” this evening but didn’t provide any details. She said that Trump will not declare victory before the race is called, as he said Tuesday morning during an appearance on Fox News,
It was reported earlier this week that Trump would host the election night viewing party for 400 hundred people in the White House East Room. The guests were reportedly tested for COVID-19 and had to go through temperature checks. “We’re recommending folks wear masks and we will be spaced,” Farah said.