Holed up in the White House and tweeting out accusations of election fraud, President Donald Trump has seen his claims make no headway in courts around the nation this week, as he has fallen further behind Joe Biden as votes continue to come in from the 2020 elections.
For a seventh straight day on Thursday, the President did not appear before reporters at the White House, did not issue any kind of video to supporters, and did not do any interviews even with friendly reporters or news organizations.
Instead, Mr. Trump lobbed repeated claims via Twitter of election fraud, which were quickly red-flagged by the social media giant, questioning their veracity.
Meanwhile, Fox News - often seen as a very favorable setting for the President - continued to raise questions about his fraud claims in Pennsylvania and other states.
Al Schmidt, Philadelphia’s top GOP city commissioner, disputes every single baseless Trump claim about voter fraud:
— j.d. durkin (@jiveDurkey) November 12, 2020
are any illegal votes being counted?
no
is there a “mountain of corruption?”
no
is it true observers weren’t allowed into counting rooms?
no
// via @FoxNews: pic.twitter.com/2mnp5mWeXs
In Congress, Republicans refused to desert the President, even as some GOP Senators began to say it would be okay to offer President-Elect Joe Biden intelligence briefings, a normal move for the winner of the race for the White House.
Asked if they thought Biden deserved the moniker President-Elect right now, most GOP Senators were refusing to entertain that.
“I think he’s Joe Biden at this point,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), though Lankford and some other Republicans conceded that it would okay for Biden to begin receiving intelligence.
Meanwhile, the news on the legal front gave the President absolutely no hope for overturning election results in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia.
In a court argument in Arizona, a Trump campaign lawyer was blocked from entering evidence gathered from random submissions on the internet, as yet another judge challenged the arguments of the President.
“It’s not a fraud case. It’s not a stealing the election case,” the lawyer said, minimizing his own case.
Establishment lawyers from the Republican side of the aisle were clearly not impressed by the evidence brought forward so far.
“This is laughable, frivolous stuff,” GOP lawyer Robert Kelner tweeted about the President’s legal effort. “There is no serious lawyering going on here. No remotely colorable evidence of fraud.”
“I do believe the election is over,” said Republican super lawyer Ted Olson on Thursday in a video event held by the conservative Federalist Society.
“I do believe we have a new President" said Olson, who argued the Bush v. Gore case at the U.S. Supreme Court.
This is laughable, frivolous stuff. There is no serious lawyering going on here. No remotely colorable evidence of fraud. Pay attention to the difference between the outlandish claims made by lawyers in the media versus what they say and submit in court, subject to sanctions. https://t.co/mLZgdNqxeW
— Robert Kelner (@robkelner) November 12, 2020
During the day on Thursday, the President was re-tweeting random people expressing their contempt for Fox News, and voicing wild claims - debunked already by his own administration - that a computer software glitch was switching thousands of votes automatically from the President to Biden.
But a U.S. Government website dubbed “Rumor Control” found that claim to be ‘nonsense,’ as it earned the President yet another warning label for ‘disputed’ claims on Twitter.
While President Trump was refusing to concede, it appeared that the First Lady had made a different determination, in an announcement on the White House website about this year’s Christmas decorations.
“2020 marks the final holiday season for the Trump White House,” the post read.
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