Backlash against Trump followed after his false election-victory claim

It’s a nail biter of a situation coming down to a handful of states as the fate of the United States presidency hangs in the balance Wednesday morning.

During the election on Tuesday night, U.S. President Donald Trump boldly claimed victory despite votes still being counted — many of them mail in ballots.

Immediate backlash against Trump followed after he made that claim, and threatened to challenge the further counting of votes in the Supreme Court.

RELATED: Biden, Trump in after-hours dogfight as key states remain unclaimed

On CNN, Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta said, “I think our founding fathers are probably rolling in their graves right now, they did not envision a president of the United States delegitimizing an American election — and that is what the president just did a few moments ago — it’s historic, and it’s historically awful.” Jake Tapper with his perspective, “it may well be that president Trump ends up winning this election once the ballots are counted, but what president trump just said was undemocratic, and false, and premature. We do not know who won this election.”

WATCH: ‘SHOCKINGLY DISAPPOINTING:’ TAPPER REBUKES TRUMP’S CHILLING SPEECH

Several networks actually interrupted Trump while he made those remarks.

Brian Williams on MSNBC said, “reluctant to step in, but duty bound to point out when he [Trump] says ‘we did win this election, we’ve already won,’ that is not based in the facts at all.”

Savannah Guthrie on NBC was one of many news anchors to jump in to fact check Trump while he was speaking.

“Listening to the president speaking at the White House but we’ve got to dip in here because there have been several statements that are just frankly not true,” she said.

On ABC, former New Jersey governor and former U.S. attorney, Chris Christie, called that statement a bad strategic and political decision, “and I think by prematurely doing this, if there is a flaw in it later, he has undercut his own credibility in calling attention to that flaw.” ABC News Correspondent Martha Raddatz said this could be a preview of what the next few months may look like, “if anyone had any doubt, how Donald Trump, if he loses, will go out — it will be this way. That he will call it a fraud he will say the election was stolen no matter what happens.” Terry Moran said, “this isn’t politics, this is theatre, and lets be blunt it’s the theatre of authoritarianism.”

Chris Wallace on Fox News said, “this is an extremely flammable situation — and the president just threw a match into it. He hasn’t won the states, nobody is saying he’s won the states, the states haven’t said that he’s won.”

Norah O’Donnell on CBS said, “the President of the United States castrating the facts of the election results that have been reported tonight — falsely claiming that he has won the election and disenfranchising millions of voters whose ballots have not been counted.”

Trump is especially focused on the large volume of mail-in ballots from large numbers of voters, many of them Democrat, because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Leading up to the election, Trump has promoted conspiracy theories and false claims that the election would be stolen by the Democrats.

Social media platforms Facebook and Instagram sent notifications to users to tell them a winner has not yet been declared in the U.S. election.

The messages read “‘votes are still being counted — the winner of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election has not been projected.”

Both Facebook and Twitter had said in advance of the election that they would apply warning labels to any posts that claimed victory before results were actually decided.

Meanwhile, some celebrities have been holding comment online, and some reacted with shock and surprise while election night played out.

RELATED: Celebrities, pro athletes encouraging Americans to vote on Election Day

This came after actors, comedians, and pro athletes encouraged Americans to cast their vote this year.

Some celebrities corrected Trump’s late night tweet that said in part, “Votes cannot be cast after the poles are closed!”

People like Stephen Amell, Sophia Bush, Debra Messing, Mark Ruffalo, and Alyssa Milano said counting all the votes is different than casting a vote.

https://twitter.com/DebraMessing/status/1323874039920758784

John Cusack wrote online that votes aren’t for policies or ideologies, and Lili Reinhart posted her thoughts in how the election night was panning out.

fact this is close is an utterly damning portrait of decadence & decay : these aren’t votes for policies or ideologies –
They are votes for a man who’s mentally ill & killing people in a pandemic & a child abducting rapist & rascist – soul of USA is deathly sick
Win & heal

— John Cusack (@johncusack) November 4, 2020

I just don’t understand how all of the racist, homophobic, immoral, transphobic, misogynistic things Trump has said and stood for wasn’t a deal breaker for this many Americans.

— Lili Reinhart (@lilireinhart) November 4, 2020

Meanwhile, Kirstie Alley posted to Twitter, saying she had hoped to wake up to a president named Donald.

I have to go to sleep I really do. I’m hoping to wake up with a new president named Donald???????????? take the wheel!

— Kirstie Alley (@kirstiealley) November 4, 2020