US PRESIDENTIAL COVERAGE BROUGHT TO YOU BY ENTOGENEX
Donald Trump has given a gracious but rambling speech as he claimed a shock victory in the US election.
The Republican vowed to build a country for everyone in his address to fans in New York City.
He walked on stage with his entourage, family and wife Melanie to a full orchestral score, savouring every moment.
Here is what he said.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. Complicated business.
"I’ve just received a call from Secretary Clinton. She congratulated us, it’s about us, on our victory and I congratulated her and her family on a very very hard fought campaign. I mean, she fought very hard.
"Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. I mean that very sincerely.
"Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division. We have to get together.
"To all Republicans and Democrats and Independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people. It’s time.
"I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be President for all Americans and this is so important to me.
"For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, I’m reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so we can work together and unify our great country.
"As I’ve said from the beginning, ours was not a campaign but rather an incredible and great movement made up of millions of hard working men and women who love their country and want better brighter future for themselves and for their family.
"It will be a movement comprised of people from all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs who want and expect our government to serve the people - and serve the people it will.
"Working together we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our nation and renewing the American dream.
"I have spent my entire life in business looking at the untapped potential in projects and in people all over the world.
"That is now what I want to do for our country. Tremendous potential. I’ve got to know our country so well. Tremendous potential. It’s gonna be a beautiful thing.
"Every single American will have the opportunity to realise his or her fullest potential. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.
"We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. We’re gonna rebuild our infrastructure which will become, by the way, second to none and we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.
"We will also finally take care of our great veterans who’ve been so loyal and I’ve got to know so many over this 18 month journey the time I’ve spent with them in this campaign has been among my greatest honours. Our veterans are incredible people.
"We will embark upon a project of national growth and renewal. I will harness the creative talents of our people and we will call upon the best and brightest to leverage their tremendous talent for the benefit of all. It’s gonna happen.
"We have a great economic plan. We will double our growth and have the strongest economy anywhere in the world.
"At the same time we will get along with all other nations willing to get along with us.
"We will have great relationships. We expect to have great great relationships.
"No dream is too big, no challenge is too great.
"Nothing we want for our future is beyond our reach. America will no longer settle for anything less than the best.
"We must reclaim our country’s destiny and dream big and bold and daring. We have to do that. We’re doing to dream of things for our country and beautiful things and successful things once again.
"I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America’s interests first we will deal fairly with everyone.
"All people and all other nations. We will seek common ground not hostility, partnership not conflict.
"First I want to thank my parents who I know are looking down on me right now. Great people. I’ve learned so much from them. They were wonderful in every regard. I had truly great parents. I also want to thank my sisters Maryanne and Elizabeth who are here with us tonight.
"And my brother Robert, my great friend. Where is Robert? They should all be on this stage but that’s OK. And also my late brother Fred, great guy, fantastic guy. Fantastic family. I was very lucky.
"To Melania and Don and Ivanka and Eric and Tiffany and Barron, I love you and I thank you and especially for putting up with all of those hours. This was tough. This was tough. This political stuff is nasty and it’s tough.
"... We have got tremendously talented people up here and I can tell you, it's been very special. I want to give a special thanks to our former mayor Rudy Giuliani who's unbelievable. Unbelievable. He travelled with us and he went through meetings and Rudy never changes. Where’s Rudy? Where is he?
"Governor Chris Christie folks, was unbelievable. Thank you Chris.
"The first man, the first Senator, the first major major politician and let me tell you he’s as smart as you get, Senator Jeff Sessions. Great man.
"Another great man, very tough competitor, he was not easy, he was not easy, who is that? Is that the mayor? Ah, Rudy got up here.
"Another great man who’s been a friend to me, I’ll tell you, I got to know him as a competitor because he was one of the folks that was negotiating to go against those democrats, Dr Ben Carson. Where’s Ben? Where is Ben?
"And by the way Mike Huckabee is here some place and he is fantastic. Mike and his family, Sarah, thank you so much.
"General Mike Flynn and General Keller, we have over 200 generals and admirals who’ve endorsed our campaign. They’re special people and it’s a great honour.
"We’ve got 22 congressional medal of honour recipients. We have just tremendous people.
"A very special person who believed me and I’d read reports I wasn’t getting along with him - I never had a bad second with him - he’s an unbelievable star. I said Reince (Priebus), I know it, look at all those people over there, is a superstar. But I said they can’t you a superstar rites unless we win…
"He is the hardest working guy. Come up here. Where is Reince? Get over here Reince. It’s about time you did this Reince. Come on, say a few words!
"Our partnership with the RNC was so important to the success of what we’ve done.
"So I also have to say I’ve gotten to know some incredible people. The Secret Service people. They’re tough, they’re smart and they’re sharp and I don’t wanna mess around with them I can tell you and when I wanna go and wave to a big group of people and they rip me down in my seat. They are a fantastic group of people.
"And law enforcement in New York City, they’re here tonight. These are spectacular people, sometimes under appreciated unfortunately, but we appreciate them, we know what they’ve been through.
"So it’s been what we call a historic event, but to be really historic, we have to do a great job. And I promise you I will not let you down. We will do a great job. WE will do a great job.
"I look very much forward to being your President and hopefully at the end of two years or three years or four years or maybe even EIGHT years you will say that that was something you were really very proud to do.
"Thank you very much. I can only say that while the campaign is over our work on this movement is now really just beginning.
"We’re going to get to work immediately for the American people and we’re going to be doing a job that hopefully you will be so proud of your President. You will be so proud.
"It’s an honour. It’s been an amazing evening, it’s been an amazing period, and I love this country. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you to Mike Pence. Thank you everybody."
Washington: In a stunning late surge in the early hours of Wednesday,Republican Donald Trump has amassed the required 270 votes to push him through the door of the White House.
Global markets were in panic with the presidential election ending as a late-night cliffhanger - Trump was ahead by a single point in the popular vote and the contest for Electoral College votes was decided by late counting of votes in just three swing states – Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Hampshire.
The national mood seemingly had positioned a fractured Republican Party on the cusp of an utterly unexpected clean sweep – the White House and both houses of Congress.
And it didn't make sense – only hours earlier, the voters who might have just elected Trump as president, had been interviewed by exit pollsters, with more than 60 per cent of them rating Trump as unqualified for the White House. And the US was set to transition power from its first black president to a candidate endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan.
Just as in Europe, the US has been engulfed by a tide of populist nationalism, that the election has revealed to have risen more sharply that was previously understood, with disaffected whites angrily venting at their modern multicultural societies, believing their personal and national power and prestige, political and cultural, are in decline.Clinton's "stronger together" didn't make the cut. Instead they have plumbed for the inherent ugliness Trumpism which, reduced to a single line, calls white American to stick with Trump, for protection against job-stealers and terrorists among the black and brown "other" communities.
Chants of "lock her up" broke out at Trump's newest hotel, the old post office in Washington, as he claimed North Carolina. City crowds in New York seemed to be in a state of zombie-like shock. And a joker at Trump's private party in Manhattan reportedly interrupted whispered conversations about whether Trump really would attempt to jail Clinton, to ask what size prison jumpsuit she would wear.
And after all Americans' chuckling at the expense of Britain in the wake of its nationalist, nativist Brexit vote, the US can now fully expect the same treatment from much of the international community. And foreign capitals will be left to wonder where they, and Washington stand in the world – on complex issues ranging from NATO to the Syria-Iraq crisis to nuclear proliferation. Perhaps chuckling most overnight will have been Vladimir Putin.
At 9.11pm in New York it became clear this would not be the Clinton cakewalk inferred by the last pre-election polls. Her chances of winning, as calculated by The New York Times, were sliding precipitously, down from 84 per cent at the start of the night to 68 per cent … 10 minutes later, down to 59 per cent; and 10 minutes later again, Trump quite suddenly had a better chance of winning – 51-49.
All expectations of an early result faded and the talk was of markets taking a hit like they did after the September 11 attacks. Hedge fund managers who, till about then, had factored a Clinton win into their market calculus were badgering political analysts and Bridgewater Associates, purportedly the world's biggest hedge fund, predicted market chaos – maybe as much as 2000 points off the Dow when markets opened on Wednesday.
As the count continued, the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures plunged 800 points; Japan's Nikkei Index was off 2.5 per cent and the Mexican peso went off a cliff – to a 22-year low.
Suddenly, analysts were speaking in terms of Clinton being lucky if she could still "eke" out a win – in which case her punishment would be enough of a win for Trumpism to guarantee political survival for its architect.
After three hours of counting a new snapshot of America was emerging – less-educated white voters, about 40 per cent of the electorate, were voting en-bloc for the GOP, robbing the Democratic Party of a chunk of their white working class ballast and leaving it more a party of minorities in a country divided by race and class, by opportunity and power.
Trump seemingly was riding the revenge of the white working class, the true recipients of his promise to make America great again, in a nation that no longer knew its other parts.
And the air beneath his wings came from surprise modelling miscalculations by the Clinton machine and most independent pollsters; and the emergence of what we were told didn't exist – a game-changing army of "shy" or Brexit-like Trump voters.
It was a night like the running of the bulls in Pamplona – and Trump was ahead of the herd and running faster than Clinton.
We bring you the latest results, state by state, as the votes are tallied
2016 US election results
Updated Nov 9, 2016 5:55 PM MYT
Election insights
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