Some are suspecting a total goof-up by President Donald Trump’s campaign team after lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, ended up addressing the media on Saturday outside a landscape and garden center on the outskirts of Philadelphia.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping appeared an odd choice for a press conference that got started just as challenger Joe Biden was declared the president-elect by the Associated Press and other media outlets as they put Pennsylvania and its 20 Electoral College votes in the Democrat’s column. Giuliani announced at the event that Trump would “not concede” and that lawsuits contesting the result in Pennsylvania and other states would be brought starting on Monday.
“This will be a very, very strong case,” said Giuliani, who added that the “networks don’t get to decide elections.”
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The briefing was held at the back parking lot of the garden center, located in an industrial park near a crematorium, and down the road from the Fantasy Island Adult Bookstore. In a since-deleted tweet ahead of the event, President Trump had announced “Lawyers Press Conference at Four Seasons.”
Shortly after, he sent a new tweet:
The four-star Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia swiftly tweeted, to head off any misunderstanding. That’s as downtown Philadelphia was erupting in celebrations by Biden supporters in the state that played a crucial role in the Scranton, Pa., native’s path to victory.
The mix-up, if it was one, was an object of interest — also: amusement and derision — on Twitter, which saw only absurdity in the parking-lot press conference:
The sketch comedy show “Saturday Night Live, offered up its take:
And within hours, there was even a T-shirt to be had.
The maker of that shirt said on Twitter TWTR,
Some Trump backers chose to believe there was method in the arguable madness, claiming the owners of the landscaping company as Trump backers and suggesting that fellow fans of the president in Philly steer their business accordingly. Others argued that Giuliani had sought a Trump-friendly corner of a blue city in which to convene the event and settled on the venue by design.