Trump has told people that he has no plans to give in even if his path to victory is blocked.

Top advisers, including his chief of staff Mark Meadows, have not tried to come to terms with the president on the reality of what is happening. Instead, they have fueled his baseless claim that his election is being stolen. That has caused some annoyance among staff, who believe Meadows is fueling the president’s unfounded claim that the election is illegitimate.

Trump is not scheduled to appear in public on Friday, although an appearance at some point has not been ruled out. He spent the morning angry and frustrated, watching television while complaining that more people were not defending him on the airwaves.

In a written statement Friday afternoon, Trump signaled his intentions to continue waging a legal battle.

“It is no longer about a one-time election. It is about the integrity of our entire electoral process,” he wrote. “We will continue this process in all aspects of the law to ensure that the American people have confidence in our government. I will never stop fighting for you and our nation.”

A source familiar with some of the behind-the-scenes legal discussions said the president is beginning to tell advisers that he may not be able to get a back-end victory.

The source pointed to Trump’s more modulated statement, which was removed from the bluster of Thursday night’s performance in the meeting room.

But even as Trump has acknowledged some allies, he acknowledges that the electoral math will not work in his favor, according to people familiar with the talks, he has maintained that a protracted court battle and corrosive rhetoric about voter fraud would sow enough doubt to allow him to. refuse to accept the results.

Two campaign aides and a source close to the president said Trump will exhaust his legal avenues to fight the results in several key states on the battlefield before considering the concession.

“He is in fighting mode,” said a source close to the president. “He thinks it is beneficial for him to fight.”

While the reality of Trump’s impending loss has been established for many people close to the campaign, others are advising the president to continue to fight the results and investigate allegations of fraud.

Biden’s campaign expressed little concern about Trump’s clinging to power.

“As we said on July 19, the American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting intruders out of the White House,” campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.

The Trump campaign issued a statement Friday morning in which it made clear that it will refuse to grant the election, calling any projection of Biden as the winner “false” and the race “far from final.”

“This election is not over,” Trump campaign general counsel Matt Morgan said in a statement.

Still, some of the president’s allies have worried that someone will eventually have to consider that his time in office is likely coming to an end. It’s a possibility the president didn’t seriously consider during the election, despite polls showing him with only a narrow path to victory, believing that looking beyond Election Day was bad luck.

The delicate issue of defeat, and possible post-presidential life, was not widely discussed among his team and was not raised often with the president, who firmly believed that he would win.

Trump spent much of the campaign claiming that Biden was the worst presidential candidate in history and suggesting that losing to him would amount to abject humiliation.

“Losing is never easy,” he said at his campaign headquarters on Election Day. “Not for me, it isn’t.”

Now, people around Trump are working to identify who could communicate the stark reality to him. There has been talk of potentially Jared Kushner or Ivanka Trump, although his willingness to lead a difficult intervention was unclear.

One idea being raised is to frame potential conversations with Trump around the idea of ​​preserving his brand for life after he is president, and explaining that delaying an election he clearly lost would ruin his business and prevent whatever political futures he may be waiting for.

Before the election, Trump raised the possibility of running again for president in 2024 if he lost, albeit only in jest. Even in likely defeat, Trump garnered more votes than in 2016 and his future role as a Republican kingmaker seems assured, though some fear a prolonged and ugly loss could damage his position.

Trump has spent the days since election night installed in the White House, angrily phoning his allies and demanding that more people come out to defend him. He has complained that his legal team is not prepared to fight an effective battle in court, according to a person who spoke with him.

At the same time, the efforts of his legal team have seemed somewhat sloppy. Some in the campaign questioned the Trump team’s decision to send the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s sons to make unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud, arguing that the president’s allegations of wrongdoing were likely downgraded.

Trump sounded downtrodden during an evening statement from the White House Thursday and left the room without answering for his false claims about voter fraud.

In meetings with his team in the Oval Office and the White House residence, Trump asked why more Republicans weren’t coming out to allege voter wrongdoing or make the same claims he made about vote counting after Election Day. .

He also pressured them to organize a public statement, something he had been eager to do since Wednesday. The aides had successfully stalled, believing that anything the president said would damage their position and make matters worse.

But after Biden spoke from near his home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Thursday afternoon, Trump insisted that a statement be added for him to detail his legal case.

Subsequently, several advisers said that the performance was precisely what they hoped to avoid.