President Trump has continued to deny defeat and days after his loss has whined without evidence that voter fraud cost him the election, even as his court fights appear to be falling flat.
Some of his Trump’s close aides and advisers including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, as well as informal adviser Corey Lewandowski, have said privately that they fear the legal battles launched for the one-term president will fail without more convincing evidence, the Washington Post reported late Tuesday.
Sources familiar with their thinking told the Post that Trump met with advisers again Tuesday afternoon to discuss a way forward.
“He wants to sow discontent in the public that the election was illegitimate, so he can say he didn’t lose,” a Trump adviser who speaks regularly with the President told the Post.
The comments come as states continue counting ballots and work toward certifying the vote, which is expected to wrap up by the beginning of December — a deadline that Trump is ill-equipped to stop.
Grabbing for straws and continuing to delay the acceptance of defeat, the President has not provided evidence of fraud that would change the outcome of the vote in critical battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Among the battleground states that Trump and his allies have gone after to subtract ballots, Michigan delivered Biden a margin of victory that equaled nearly 150,000 votes, making any challenge there especially difficult, the Post noted.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar’s office announced late Tuesday that counties had received about 10,000 votes total after Nov. 3, which the GOP has sued to disqualify. Even if Trump were tossed a small win in that suit, it wouldn’t change Biden’s projected win in the Keystone state.
A top Wisconsin elections official, Meagan Wolfe, said in a statement Tuesday evening that “no evidence” had been presented that “supports allegations of systematic or widespread election issues” in the state.
One Trump adviser acknowledged to the Post that most of the campaign’s court fights hadn’t amounted to much and he expected it to be over this weekend “unless something really changes and we find real evidence.”
The vice president’s chief of staff, Marc Short, meanwhile reportedly dismissed calls for Pence to appear at an event on Saturday where Giuliani and others sought to chip away at the integrity of the election. Per the Post, he told several advisers it would be inappropriate for Pence to attend and beneath the dignity of his office.
