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For 10 days, the Republican has been consumed by his quest for a conspiracy theory that Democrat Joe Biden won through massive ballot rigging.
US President Donald Trump speaks in the White House meeting room on November 5, 2020 in Washington, DC. Image: AFP
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump, who has largely disappeared from public view since his electoral defeat, is scheduled to appear Friday for a meeting at the White House on the COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
For 10 days, the Republican has been consumed by his quest for a conspiracy theory that Democrat Joe Biden won through massive ballot rigging.
Despite the statement by his own intelligence officials Thursday that the Nov. 3 election was “the safest in American history,” Trump and his right-wing media allies show no signs of abandoning their crusade.
“Biden didn’t win, he lost by big!” Trump falsely asserted again Thursday night while tweeting comments on the late-night Fox News show starring his promoter Sean Hannity.
Trump has been tweeting day and night about the unsubstantiated fraud allegations.
But he has been absent from his regular presidential duties and has been silent on the rates of coronavirus infection across the country and the steady rise in deaths.
The business session on Friday at noon (1700 GMT) was marked as an “update” on Operation Warp Speed, the government’s partnership with drug companies to create and distribute a vaccine.
The closed-door meeting marked a rare change in the president’s daily public schedule, which has mostly been empty since the election.
He has not spoken in public or answered questions from journalists for more than a week.
DIVIDED REALITY
Trump and his top advisers increasingly live in a divided reality.
Despite a healthy majority of votes counted for Biden and days of unsuccessful attempts by Trump’s lawyers to present evidence of significant wrongdoing, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told Fox Business on Friday that his side was still convinced of victory.
“We believe that he won those elections,” he said. “We are moving forward here in the White House under the assumption that there will be a second term from Trump.”
Meanwhile, Biden is constantly preparing to take office on January 20, and the list of world leaders who accept that he will be the new president continues to grow.
China was the last nation on board, and a Foreign Ministry spokesman said “we express our congratulations.”
However, Biden’s new chief of staff, Ron Klain, told MSNBC late Thursday that Trump’s moves to block the incoming administration’s access to confidential government briefings pose a growing risk.
Klain highlighted the inability to join the preparations for the launch of the COVID vaccine in “February and March, when Joe Biden will be president.”
“The sooner we can get our transition experts to meet with the people who are planning the vaccination campaign, the more seamless it will be,” he said.
Top Republicans remain seemingly loyal to Trump, but there appears to be growing discomfort within the party over the blocking of Biden’s transition team.
Senator James Lankford told Tulsa Radio KRMG earlier this week that he was giving Trump until Friday to allow Biden to access the daily presidential intelligence briefing or “I will step in.”
John Bolton, a former national security adviser under Trump and a popular figure in the aggressive foreign policy wing of the Republican Party, said his side has to “acknowledge the reality that Biden is president-elect.”
“They may not like it, but the country deserves to give it the preparation it needs,” he told NPR radio on Friday.
Since the election, Trump has only left the White House to play golf twice and to attend a brief Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
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