Bernie Sanders totally predicted Trump's false victory claim over a week before the election

While the past 48 hours or so have reminded us that attempting to predict the outcome of a US presidential election — especially in the current political climate — can be a tricky business, it turns out Sen. Bernie Sanders is a total pro at it. A now-viral clip shows the former presidential candidate predict the events of election night with an almost terrifying precision during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on October 23. Sanders even called Donald Trump's unfounded and false claims of early victory while talking to Fallon about his concerns regarding delayed election results.

The 79-year-old explained that he was worried about exactly what ended up playing out early Wednesday morning when the president prematurely declared himself the victor of the 2020 election. "My view is, every vote must be counted," Sanders told Fallon. "For reasons which I don't have the time to get into tonight, you're going to have a situation — I suspect — in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, other states, where they are going to be receiving huge amounts of mail-in ballots. Unlike states like Florida or Vermont, they may not be able, for bad reasons, to begin processing those ballots until Election Day or maybe when the polls close."

"That means you’re going to have states dealing with perhaps millions of mail-in ballots. Here is my worry: What polls show, and what studies have shown, is that, for whatever reason, Democrats are more likely to use mail-in ballots. Republicans are more likely to walk into polling booths on Election Day," he explained. "It is likely that the first votes that will be counted will be those people who came in on Election Day, which will be Republican. And here is the fear, and I hope everybody hears it: I don't know what's going to happen; nobody does. But it could well be that at 10:00 on Election Night, Trump is winning in Michigan, he's winning in Pennsylvania, he's winning in Wisconsin, and he gets on the television and he says, 'Thank you, Americans, for electing me! It's all over, have a good day!'"

"But then the next day and the day following, all of those mail-in ballots start getting counted, and it turns out that Biden has won those states, at which point Trump says, 'See? I told you the whole thing was fraudulent! I told you all those mail-in ballots were crooked, and we're not gonna leave office!' So that is a worry that I and a lot of people have," Sanders added. Of course, former Vice President Joe Biden won the battleground prizes of Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday and Pennsylvania remains too close to call, but that didn't stop Trump from claiming that he "did win" the election, despite millions of outstanding ballots left to be counted in several key states.

During his appearance on the show, Sanders also addressed the second presidential debate. "It was certainly not as crazy a debate as the first debate. But I continue to be astounded by the degree to which Donald Trump lies. Just lies and lies and lies. Not only his lies, his downplaying of this terrible pandemic from day one is just astounding to me. And I hope the American people understand that because of his irresponsibility, because of his rejection of science, his attacks on Dr. Fauci, tens of thousands of people have died unnecessarily."

Speaking of his endorsement for Biden, Sanders said: "I think that Donald Trump is the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country. It's not just because he lies all the time, it's not just because he doesn't believe in science, it's not just because he is a racist, or a sexist, or a homophobe, or a xenophobe... It is because he is quite intentionally trying to undermine American democracy. Trying to suppress the vote. We are a democratic society. People have fought and died to defend our democracy and we cannot re-elect the president who does not believe in the rule of law, our constitution, or in fact, our democracy. I have known Joe for many many years. He's a very decent guy. He and I have differences of opinion on a number of issues but I can vouch for his decency and his belief in the rule of law and democracy."