Some senior officials inside the White House and the campaign have begun to quietly back away from Trump, in acts of self-preservation, reports CNN citing sources close to the White House.
They are doing so as a desperate measure since the returns in Pennsylvania and Georgia indicate that Trump will not win reelection, they said.
“It’s over,” said one key adviser to the administration to CNN. The adviser added that there are concerns about what Trump will do, beyond the question of whether he will concede the race.
When asked what Trump might do next, the adviser said: “God. Who knows.”
A sense of grim resignation settled in at the White House on Friday, where the president was monitoring TV and talking to advisers on the phone. One adviser said it was clear the race was tilting against Trump, but that Trump was not ready to admit defeat.
Multiple officials in the campaign and the White House were shaking their heads and conceding after Trump’s litany of false statements on Thursday evening in the White House briefing room.
Some in the campaign, the adviser said, questioned the Trump team’s decision to dispatch the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s sons to make unfounded allegations of voter fraud, arguing that likely diminished the president’s claims of wrongdoing.
The adviser told CNN that Trump is well within his rights to contest the election results but is going about it in exactly the wrong way.
A separate adviser to the campaign described Trump as increasingly isolated in his claims of a stolen election. “He is mostly alone here,” the adviser said of Trump’s claims of voter fraud.
The sources noted, however, there are still some aides and allies around the president telling him what he wants to hear. That will keep the drama going, the sources added.
One pressure point for Trump is that some in the administration are already beginning to look beyond the 2020 race and toward 2024. One adviser said some inside the administration and the GOP are starting to measure their actions based on ambitions for the next campaign cycle.
Donald Trump’s unfounded accusations of fraud in the US presidential election have been condemned by some of his fellow Republicans, but top party figures have maintained their support, reports AFP.
With results showing Democratic challenger Joe Biden edging closer to victory, Trump made a series of allegations of “rigging and fraud” without evidence on Thursday night in a speech that was widely condemned.
Senator Mitt Romney, the former Republican presidential candidate who has been strongly critical of Trump, was among those speaking out.
Trump, 74, has sought to portray as fraudulent the slow counting of mail-in ballots. He has unleashed a series of social media posts baselessly claiming fraud, prompting Twitter and Facebook to append warning labels, reports Reuters.
Source : CNN
