Trump visits Arlington National Cemetery for Veterans Day 2020 observance - his first public appearance since Biden won the election. Video / Fox News
Donald Trump spent 10 minutes in public today honouring America's war veterans — a veneer of normality for a White House that's frozen by a defeated president mulling his options.
The Republican is mostly forgoing the mechanics of governing and blocking his inevitable successor.
Trump's appearance at the annual Veterans Day commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery was his first public outing for official business in more than a week.
He has spent the past few days in private tweeting angry, unsupported claims of voter fraud.
The President has made no comments in person since Democrat Joe Biden clinched the 270 electoral votes on Sunday needed to win the presidency.
NEW: President-elect Joe. Biden will this week name veteran Democratic operative Ron Klain as his White House chief of staff, sources told Axios today https://t.co/TFMPlB7hNq
All the while, his aides grow more certain that legal challenges won't change the outcome of the election, according to seven campaign and White House officials.
Before setting off for the solemn commemoration at Arlington, Trump took to Twitter to slam "fake pollsters" and moan that a Republican city commissioner who defended the vote tabulation in Philadelphia wasn't a true Republican.
He also sought to draw attention to a Pennsylvania poll worker who recanted allegations of voter fraud yesterday before reasserting his allegations today.
Although his official schedule has been bare of public events, Trump has made several personnel moves — firing Defence Secretary Mark Esper and installing three staunch loyalists in top defence jobs. His pick as acting defence secretary, Christopher Miller, was among the Pentagon brass that joined him at Arlington.
Some supporters pushed back against the notion that Trump is shirking his presidential duties.
"The President is out there as much as he's ever been on Twitter, and the White House team are moving ahead with budget and staffing priorities," said Dan Eberhart, a prominent Republican donor and Trump backer.
He added, "The President is understandably focused on the ballot counting, but at some point soon he needs to turn his attention back to the lame duck session and putting a capstone on his first four years."
GOP Utah Gov.-elect Spencer Cox, who has acknowledged Joe Biden’s election victory, discusses why many Republicans are refusing to do the same.
“Unfortunately, too many politicians are scared that if they say something nice about someone else that they’ll lose their position.” pic.twitter.com/kHN8wcT64k
However, few senior staffers have been around the President in recent days, with many either in quarantine after testing positive for Covid-19 or in insolation after a confirmed exposure or simply not wanting to be near the Oval Office, according to White House staffers and campaign officials.
Staff working from the White House thinned out after chief of staff Mark Meadows confirmed last week that he had tested positive for the virus.
Some staffers still believe the election outcome can change with litigation and recounts. But there is a growing recognition among most that the election is lost and the building will be vacated by January 20.
US President Donald Trump participates in a Veterans Day wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Photo / AP
At times, he has seethed with anger, fuming that he lost to a candidate he doesn't respect and believing that the media - including what he views as typically friendly Fox News - worked against him.
But aides say he has been calmer than his tweets suggest, showing greater understanding of his predicament and believing that he needs to keep fighting almost as performance, as a show to the 70 million people who voted for him that he is still battling.
In recent days, some aides, including his daughter Ivanka, have started to talk to him about an endgame, questioning how much longer he wants to fight.
“Klain, 59, has been a senior adviser to Democratic presidents, vice presidents, candidates and senators. His appointment marks a homecoming of sorts, since Klain served in the late 1980s as a top aide to Biden when he was chairman of Senate Judiciary... “ https://t.co/rFtjIGmReq
Outside the White House, one prominent former ally turned Trump critic warned that the President was doing potentially irreparable damage to the Republican Party.
"The real issue is the grievous harm he is causing to public trust in America's constitutional system," former Trump national security adviser John Bolton wrote in a Washington Post op-ed today. "Trump's time is running out, even as his rhetoric continues escalating."
But no one in his inner circle — West Wing staff or Cabinet — is forcefully pushing him to stop.
Though he has been in the Oval Office late two nights this week, the President has done little in the way of governing and has instead been working the phones.
He has called friendly governors — in red states like Arizona, Texas and Florida — and influential confidants in the conservative media, like Sean Hannity. But he has not been as responsive to Republican lawmakers as before the election.
Always an obsessive cable news viewer, he has been watching even more TV than usual in recent weeks, often from his private dining room just off the Oval Office.
Trump's approach to two crucial Senate run-off elections in Georgia remains an open question: He has not yet signalled if he will campaign there, and aides have started to worry that the extended legal battle could sap support for the GOP candidates.
Trump has also begun talking about his own future upon leaving office. He has mused about declaring he will run again in 2024, and aides believe that he will at least openly flirt with the idea to enhance his relevance and raise interest in whatever money-making efforts he pursues.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called his conversation with President-elect Joe Biden "refreshing," saying he was "delighted to find the many areas in which the incoming Biden-Harris administration is able to make common cause." https://t.co/U2O4GY3WuCpic.twitter.com/3VKWZ8J4dw
While he ponders his options, his involvement in the day-to-day governing of the nation has nearly stopped: According to his schedule, he has not attended an intelligence briefing in weeks, and the White House has done little of late to manage the pandemic that has surged to record highs in many states.
The President's resistance to acknowledging the outcome of the race has stalled the transition process. The head of the General Services Administration, a Trump appointee, has held off on certifying Biden as the winner of the election.
The certification — known as ascertainment — would free money for the transition and clear the way for Biden's team to begin placing transition personnel at federal agencies. White House spokesman Judd Deere said he was "not aware" of any communications between the White House and the GSA administrator on ascertainment.
Denis McDonough, who served as White House chief of staff during the Obama Administration and helped oversee the 2017 transition of power, said that even as Trump has tried to stymie the transition, significant progress still has been made.
The Biden transition team has published an ethics plan and the Trump Administration earlier established a White House Transition Coordinating Council as required by law.
