Trump’s spokeswoman denies he plans to press Michigan state officials to overrule voters

'Donald Trump doesn't get to decide if Joe Biden is president or not,' incoming White House chief of staff says

Donald Trump’s top spokeswoman denied the president plans to try convincing two top Michigan state lawmakers to overrule voters there by sending pro-Trump delegagtes to the final Electoral College vote.

“That’s not an advocacy meeting. He routinely meets with lawmakers from all across the country,” Kayleigh McEnany told reporters in her first briefing in some time.

Mr Trump has met with state lawmakers during his term, but her definition of “routinely” seemed questionable. The president is slated to meet with the two state lawmakers on Friday afternoon.

His spokeswoman was quick to note that “no campaign officials” will attend the highly unusual meeting.

The outgoing president’s unprecedented challenge of the general election, which the Associated Press projects he lost 306-232 electoral votes to Joe Biden, has so far failed in court. A list of federal judges in a handful of battleground states he lost have thrown out his campaign’s lawsuits about a lack of GOP vote-counting observers and vague shenanigans by Democrats.

Mr Trump’s lead personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, on Thursday led a chaotic press conference during which he alleged a coast-to-coast plot by Democrats to dump tens of thousands of ballots at the last minute to take away a Trump win.

As those legal cases have been tossed, Mr Trump appears to be trying a new path: attempting to convince GOP-majority state legislators in enough states won by Mr Biden to elect their own delegates to the Electoral College.

Rather than casting their states’ votes according to how voters actually cast ballots, the president seems to want them to instead send pro-Trump delegates. They then would cast their states’ electoral votes for the president in an effort to get him over the 270 votes needed to win.

The remarkably brash legal and electoral campaigns are playing out in plain view, with Mr Trump and his remaining team doing little to hide their tactics.

Mr Biden, meantime, has carried on with transition planning – even though Mr Trump is blocking the traditional transition process, including allowing the Biden team access to classified national security and coronavirus vaccine distribution data.

On the latter, Ms McEnany on Friday contended the Biden team merely has to open a website and look at the Trump administration’s “publicly available” inoculation-distribution blueprint.

Though the Trump administration is not cooperating with the Biden transition team, the president-elect’s incoming White House chief of staff said this week he is not surprised the outgoing chief executive is trying to stay in office however he can. 

“I think we're seeing the kinds of stunts we expected,” Ron Klain told CNN. “But Donald Trump doesn't get to decide if Joe Biden is president or not. The American people decided.”