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With millions of ballots still counted, Trump woke up in an agitated state, tweeting or retweeting messages that sought to undermine confidence in the vote counting process. At least three were labeled by Twitter as “disputed” or “misleading.”
Several top Republicans, including those close to Senate Republican leaders, privately rejected Trump’s suggestion that ballots should not be counted after Election Day.
And even his own campaign said in a call with reporters that Trump’s remaining path to victory will hinge on those ballots even without counting in places where the tabulation process of results has taken longer.
What emerged was a picture of a president determined to use every tool at his disposal to force a victory, including misinformation about the integrity of the vote and a barrage of legal maneuvering, even as the results were still coming in and his advisers. they insisted. mathematics would turn in his favor.
As the day wore on, the Trump team’s legal strategy was becoming clearer. The campaign said it would request a recount in Wisconsin, which CNN projects Biden will win, and demanded that the vote count stop in Michigan. A team of advisers mobilized to Philadelphia, which Trump had pointed out earlier on Tuesday would be the site of intense legal efforts should the results show he loses.
And Trump supporters began to receive a flood of fundraising requests to finance what will amount to a costly and lengthy legal fight.
“If we count all the legal ballots, the president wins,” campaign manager Bill Stepien told reporters in a quickly arranged conference call in the middle of the morning.
Trump, however, has projected less optimism along those routes and instead has tried to question the large batches of outstanding votes that have tipped some states toward Biden.
“They’re finding Biden votes everywhere – in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Too bad for our country!” wrote on Twitter.
Aides are encouraging Trump to stay in the fight, although Trump hardly needs a push, a campaign adviser said Wednesday. Trump has been furious to see Biden’s leadership rise in states like Michigan and Wisconsin.
“You feel like they’re robbing you,” said the advisor.
Trump’s grip on the Republican Party remains firm and does not appear willing to loosen after Tuesday night’s results. Few Republican elected officials spoke out against Trump’s attempts to delegitimize the vote counting process. Instead, most remained silent or at least cautious as the situation unfolded.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who won his own reelection race Tuesday, suggested at a news conference in Louisville that Trump’s premature declaration of victory was not binding.
“Claiming that you won the election is different from ending the count,” he said.
Yet privately, those within Trump’s party were beginning to undermine his claims that the fraudulent vote was sparking late-blooming Democratic waves on critical battlefields.
“No, we do not agree with what comes out of the White House,” said a senior Republican official. “We don’t see credible reports of fraud or anything improper.”
Uncertainty
Trump had long signaled that he would not accept the results of a close election that showed him losing, but how he planned to proceed was unknown. He said in his early morning statement from the East Room that he would challenge the election results in the United States Supreme Court, but until now, on Wednesday, his legal team was still formulating plans in individual states where margins remain tight. , including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The Trump campaign signaled to its allies that it plans to launch broad legal challenges in those states. Stepien told campaign surrogates in a phone call Wednesday morning that campaign attorneys are already on the ground in anticipation of introductions, a person familiar with the matter said.
Trump campaign officials told allies on the call that the likely first step would be to request recounts in states like Wisconsin and Michigan.
A few hours later, the campaign said in a statement that it would request a recount in Wisconsin, although under Wisconsin law, a campaign cannot request a recount until the state Elections Commission completes the count of county boards of elections.
It’s unclear how much a recount would help Trump’s efforts; a recount of the presidential vote in 2016 only gave Trump a few hundred additional votes. Biden was leading Trump by more than 20,000 votes as of Wednesday.
The Trump campaign also released a statement saying it had filed a lawsuit in Michigan asking the state to halt vote counting until it receives “meaningful access” to observe the opening of the ballots and the counting process.
CNN teams in Michigan have seen no evidence that the lawsuit was actually filed. While the Trump campaign has said the lawsuit was filed in Michigan Claims Court, Claims Court Clerk of Record Morgan Adams told CNN that the court has not received the filing.
Trump signaled ahead of the election that his lawyers would intervene in Pennsylvania shortly after the vote ended, and officials have told Trump allies that they anticipate a presentation there in the coming days. It was not yet clear what would constitute the basis for a legal challenge in Pennsylvania.
A large collection of Trump advisers, including his son Eric, senior advisers and daughter-in-law Lara Trump, former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi and senior adviser Corey Lewandowski were traveling to Philadelphia ahead of the expected legal challenges.
Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, tweeted that he had mobilized to Philadelphia, but it was unclear if he was acting officially for the campaign.
Trump had no events on his schedule Wednesday, and Vice President Mike Pence’s schedule was equally empty. Both were expected to remain in Washington to consult with the legal and campaign teams on their next steps.
The night before, deliberations about what Trump would say when he left after midnight were sometimes intense, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump’s speech came around 2:30 a.m. ET, long after his rival spoke from Wilmington, Delaware. While teleprompters were installed so that he could read, he seemed to improvise much of his speech.
“This is without a doubt the last press conference I have ever had,” Trump said.
Speaking after him, Pence appeared to deliver a drastically different message, saying that “as long as the votes continue to be counted, we will remain vigilant.”
Trump openly acknowledged that he had felt better early Tuesday night, when guests nibbled on pigs on a blanket and fries on the White House state floor, and early results showed him beating former Vice President Joe Biden.
“We were literally ready to go out and celebrate something that was so beautiful, so good,” he said.
While 400 people were invited to the party, far fewer attended, including several Fox News personalities and members of the president’s cabinet.
Trump made a brief appearance at the party early in the evening before retiring upstairs to his private residence. There, he consulted with a smaller group of campaign and White House advisers on how to proceed. A campaign “war room” had been set up on the White House campus to provide Trump and his senior team with real-time updates.
Other members of Trump’s inner circle, including members of his family, held a more private party to see the results in the family dining room, where large televisions had been installed and a sofa had been installed.
Surprising night
Trump’s initial confidence turned to outrage when Fox News, the network that airs on large televisions installed throughout the White House, projected that Biden would win Arizona. The Trump campaign publicly asked the network to retract the screening and on Wednesday morning, the president’s campaign manager insisted to reporters that Arizona was still in play.
“The votes that are late and that are cast closer to Election Day are the ones that are counted now,” said Bill Stepien, adding that they expect two-thirds to 70% of the remaining uncounted votes “to reach the President”.
“That math adds up to a margin of about 30,000 votes in favor of the president,” Stepien said, adding that Arizona “will come in the way of the president.”
Biden’s campaign offered a completely different assessment in their own conference call, saying they believed the former vice president had won Arizona and was on track to win Michigan and Wisconsin.
Despite the confidence projected by the Trump campaign, not everyone on that team was optimistic when they woke up on Wednesday.
“We are clearly in a corner here,” said a senior official.
But the official cautioned that the campaign is not yet out of the game, and campaign officials have continued to state both publicly and privately that they believe they will have fired if they can get Arizona and Nevada into their column.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign was desperately raising funds the day after the election for resources to fight legal battles against the election results. The campaign sent six emails to supporters since midnight asking for money. Each of the requests has included the false claim that the Democrats are trying to “steal” the election.
There is no evidence of dire activity surrounding the election recount.
At a rally in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on the eve of Election Day, Trump said campaign attorneys “will come in and fight.”
CNN’s Jim Acosta, Jeff Zeleny, Sarah Westwood, Betsy Klein and Greg Clary contributed to this report.
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