Trump faces his loss as he raises funds from protests

US President Donald Trump is aware that his fight to roll back the election is coming to an end, according to people familiar with the matter, but he is not ready to end the effort as he raises funds from the furor. , and directs much of the profits to his political action. committee.

Still, Trump appears to be charting a path that will end with his departure from the White House without formally yielding to Democrat Joe Biden. He continues to insist that the result was “rigged” as he charts his next steps.

The president has drawn a series of hints in recent comments that he is assuming the reality that Biden will be the next president.

On Thursday, answering journalists’ questions for the first time since Election Day, Trump uttered the words “Biden administration.”

But during a 25-minute press conference, he still insisted with outrage that he actually won the election and also signaled that he would accept his fate as the first term president since George HW Bush.

“I certainly will, and you know it,” Trump said when asked if he would leave the White House after Biden’s inauguration.

After a round of golf on Friday and a new string of tweets fanning doubts about the election result, Trump headed to Camp David in Maryland for what could be his last visit as president to the tree-lined presidential retreat. All of her adult children and several close collaborators were already there, according to images posted on Instagram.

Low profile

After an administration defined by Trump’s taste for showmanship, he has kept an extraordinarily low profile since the election: he plays golf frequently, holds few public events, and until Thursday, avoids his usual jousts with journalists.

Trump’s circle of campaign advisers has been reduced to his staunchest loyalists, primarily Rudy Giuliani, people familiar with the matter said. His campaign apparatus has begun to shut down and his campaign manager has not made a press call in three weeks.

In an interview with Newsmax on Friday night, Giuliani promised to take the battle to state lawmakers. “We go to each of these state legislators and say: if you certify that vote, you are certifying a false statement,” he said.

Trump realizes he faces near impossible odds of reversing the election results, said Barry Bennett, a Republican strategist who worked on the president’s 2016 campaign.

“He is a realist in that sense. That doesn’t make pain any easier and it doesn’t lessen suspicion, ”Bennett said. Trump and his most ardent supporters will continue to doubt the legitimacy of the election, he said.

The campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, is now mostly empty, populated by a small group of legal, financial and compliance staff in downsizing mode. Much of the rented furniture has been returned.

Clock running

Trump acknowledged Thursday that he is running out of time to demonstrate and detail the widespread fraud he alleges, which allegedly affects millions of votes in multiple states, including at least two run by Republicans.

There is no public evidence of voter fraud on a significant scale, and Trump’s legal challenges have almost uniformly failed. He was hit again on Friday in Pennsylvania by a panel of three judges, all Republicans, who rejected his attempt to revoke the state’s certification of election results.

“Voters, not lawyers, elect the president. The ballots, not the written ones, decide the elections, ”the court said in an opinion written by Judge Stephanos Bibas, whom Trump appointed.

However, Trump still rejects the results. On Friday, while driving to his golf course in northern Virginia, Trump demanded in a tweet that Biden “prove” that the 80 million votes cast by him were legitimate. In fact, as electoral authorities in each successive state certify their results, that evidence accumulates.

The Electoral College will vote on December 14. The certificates that record the results of the electoral vote in each state must be received by the president of the Senate no later than December 23. Biden is already certified as the winner or leader in states that add 306 electoral votes, well above the victory threshold of 270. Among the states scheduled to certify next week are the battlefields of Arizona and Wisconsin.

Giuliani leads Trump’s legal efforts, flanked by Jenna Ellis, a staunch Trump supporter and Twitter provocateur.

Internal shock

The contracts of many campaign staff members ended on November 15, as planned, people familiar with the matter said. One core group remains, including campaign manager Bill Stepien, deputy campaign manager Justin Clark, campaign advisor Jason Miller, communications director Tim Murtaugh and attorney general Matt Morgan.

In a closed-door meeting earlier this month, Giuliani clashed with campaign managers, who said they were underestimating Trump’s chances of success, said two people familiar with the exchange.

During the meeting, senior campaign officials shared what they believed to be reality: Trump had, at best, a very narrow path to invalidate the results in various states and change the election results. Giuliani called them liars, according to people. Clark responded with an expletive.

One official said campaign leaders are skeptical that Giuliani’s effort will succeed. The campaign declined to comment.

The campaign’s most recent press conference was on Nov. 19, a chaotic affair at Republican National Committee headquarters with Ellis, attorney Sidney Powell and Guiliani sweating rivulets of black hair dye. Trump’s campaign leadership was not involved in planning that event, said two people familiar with the matter.

Giuliani and Ellis have since cut ties with Powell, who is raising funds for his own renegade legal effort. He filed typographical error lawsuits in Michigan and Georgia this week alleging massive voter fraud.

The Trump campaign last held a press call on November 12 with Morgan. Stepien last reported to reporters on November 5. Clark and Morgan had been leading the legal effort after the election, but turned the role over to Giuliani.

Among a series of legal setbacks the campaign suffered in attempting to discredit Biden’s victory, the law firm Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP disavowed the effort on November 12 and withdrew from a lawsuit. Trump named Giuliani his top legal emissary two days later.

Giuliani and Ellis attended an unofficial hearing on Wednesday’s election that Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania hosted in Gettysburg, calling Trump twice over the loudspeaker. Addressing the Oval Office meeting, the president, who had considered flying for the event, held at a Wyndham hotel, endorsed their extensive but unfounded claims of fraud and strongly called for the state vote to be reversed.

Ellis has also called on state lawmakers to override voters and designate a pro-Trump voters list, something many constitutional law experts consider illegal. She has promised that Trump will take his legal battle to the Supreme Court, which could happen in a few days.

Trump will return to the election campaign this week. On December 5, he will hold a rally in Georgia by Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, sitting Republicans facing the second round of elections on January 5. Democrats would need to win both races to take control of the Senate.

Trump has reflected with his aides about the possibility of attending Biden’s inauguration, people familiar with the matter said. The president said Thursday that he had made a decision but did not tell reporters. His staff will urge him to leave, so he will likely end up doing so, two officials said.

Trump declined Thursday to discuss whether he will run again in 2024.