Washington:
A defiant Donald Trump once again falsely insisted that he “won” reelection in his first public appearance for a week on Friday, as the US president seemed increasingly isolated over his risky attempt to stay in power.
Affirming against all odds that a path to victory remains viable and facing pushback from other Republicans alarmed by his effort to overturn the results, Trump invited Michigan lawmakers to the White House on Friday as part of an attempt to subvert the will of voters in key states.
But if you expected them to repeat the president’s line and publicly support efforts to overturn the Michigan election results, which Biden won by 155,000 votes, you were wrong.
Republican lawmakers stood firm and said they would respect the election result.
“We have not yet learned of any information that changes the outcome of the Michigan elections,” said State Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield in a joint statement after meet with Trump.
“Michigan’s certification process must be a deliberate process free from threats and intimidation,” they added.
The statement came after Trump made brief comments on the election by announcing new drug pricing plans in a rare post-election speech to reporters.
“Big Pharma ran millions of dollars in negative ads against me during the campaign, which I won, by the way, but we’ll find out,” Trump said.
He left the meeting room without answering questions.
Logic dictates that Trump’s days in the White House are numbered, with key states that sealed President-elect Biden’s victory quickly approaching the deadlines to certify their election results.
In a second blow Friday to Trump’s election interference efforts, Georgia became the first of those states to formally certify its results, stating that Biden won the southern state by 12,670 votes, or 0.26 percent of about five. million votes cast.
“The numbers don’t lie,” said Brad Raffensperger, Republican secretary of state for Georgia. “The numbers reflect the verdict of the people.”
Last effort
Trump has been making a last-ditch effort to discard ballots in counties that voted heavily Democratic, force recounts, and delay the process of finalizing state results before the Electoral College votes to confirm the next president on Dec. 14. .
In the latest in a series of presidential speeches not seen in modern American politics, he had previously insisted on Twitter that if Georgia allowed him to “expose hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots,” it would give him a “BIG VICTORY” in the state.
The president spent most of the day huddled in the White House, enraged by the “rigged election” and retweeting conservative personalities, including a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy, arguing that his rival’s victory was fraudulent.
Retired Senator Lamar Alexander became the latest Republican lawmaker to seek to push Trump into a formal transition process.
Biden “has a very good chance” of becoming the next president, Alexander said, and should be given “all” the resources necessary for a smooth transfer of power.
Despite Trump’s election denial, Biden is fully preparing to take office on January 20.
On Friday, when he turned 78, Biden huddled in Wilmington, Delaware with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, top Congressional Democrats, and told them he had “a lot of work to do”.
Trump’s tactic in Michigan raised eyebrows among his party members.
Republican Senator Mitt Romney launched a withering attack on Trump for pressuring local officials, saying, “It’s hard to imagine a worse and more undemocratic action by a sitting US president.”
Fellow Senate Republicans Ben Sasse and Joni Ernst also criticized the tactic.
Yet Trump’s legal team continues to fight.
Rudy Giuliani and other lawyers staged a conspiracy-laden press conference Thursday selling unsubstantiated allegations that Democratic “criminals” committed widespread fraud to deny Trump’s reelection.
‘Never stop fighting’
The certification of Georgia’s results, the first time a Democratic presidential candidate has won the southern state since 1992, was new bad news for Trump.
Yet Vice President Mike Pence carried Trump’s message of defiance to Georgia while campaigning with two Republicans whose January 5 runoff elections will determine which party will control the Senate next year.
“We are going to keep fighting until every legal vote is counted. We are going to keep fighting until every illegal vote is removed,” Pence told a crowd in Canton.
“And whatever the outcome, we will never stop fighting to make America great again,” he added, amid chants of “four more years!”
As Trump struggles unsuccessfully to reverse his electoral defeat, Biden has criticized him for failing to focus on the coronavirus pandemic that has rampaged across the country and killed 254,000 Americans.
On Friday, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, announced that he tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this week, but was showing no symptoms.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
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