Inside...Managing a monster
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump vowed on Friday to continue to fight the election results, privately urging allies and advisers to defend him publicly and insisting that he still had a path to victory over former vice president Joe Biden.
But behind the scenes over the past two days, advisers have broached with the president the prospect of an electoral defeat, and how he should handle such an outcome, two people familiar with the discussions said.
Some close to the president are advocating that, if Biden is declared the winner of the presidential election, Trump will ultimately offer public remarks in which he commits to a peaceful transition of power, according to allies and Republican officials, who like others on Friday spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. One senior campaign aide, however, said there had been no discussion of a concession speech.
Trump is unlikely to ever concede in the traditional sense, allies said - giving the sort of gracious, magnanimous speech the nation has come to expect at the end of even the most hard-fought presidential contests. If he loses, these people added, they expect Trump to continue to baselessly claim, as he has done for several days now, that the election was stolen.
Since Election Day, the president has acknowledged to some advisers that he faces an uphill battle but has argued it is still a battle worth having.
Still, some in Trump's orbit have worked to calm the president and help push him toward what many privately acknowledge is an increasingly likely outcome: the loss of the White House, for a man who has made clear he detests losing almost above all
After an angry appearance in the White House briefing room Thursday evening in which he called into question the legitimacy of the election results, aides convinced the president on Friday to release a more measured statement about the unfolding vote counting and to refrain from any public appearances.
The statement issued through his campaign called for "full transparency into all vote counting and election certification," saying that the fight was "no longer about any single election."
"I will never give up fighting for you and our nation," the president concluded.
A person close to the campaign described the statement as "a baby step away from defiance and toward a possible loss."
Trump has spent the week talking to a coterie of longtime advisers and allies, several officials said, including Kellyanne Conway, his former counselor who left the White House at the end of August; Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney; Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser; Vice President Mike Pence; Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel; White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; former chief of staff Reince Priebus; and his campaign team.
His allies are still divided into two main factions - one group, led by the president and his family, that still believes he has a path to victory and that he should continue to battle; and another, larger group of advisers and Republican officials who believe the presidency has all but slipped away.
Yet even those who now believe a Biden victory is a foregone conclusion have struggled with how to break the news to Trump. "They know he's lost, but no one seems willing to tell King Lear or Mad King George that they've lost the empire," said one Republican in frequent touch with the White House.
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