Trump says Biden is ‘pretending he’s won’ and insists he had a ‘landslide victory’

The president shows no signs of accepting reality and may never concede defeat

Donald Trump has said Joe Biden is "pretending" he won the election, and insisted that he was cheated of his "landslide victory".

The electoral college's meetings across the United States on Monday enraged Mr Trump, who is still not accepting his defeat.

On Tuesday Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Senate, acknowledged for the first time that Mr Trump had lost; the electoral college vote marking, for him, the end of Mr Trump's hopes of clinging to the White House.

The president was still refusing to concede.

On Tuesday morning he insisted, as ever without evidence, that there were "tremendous problems being found with voting machines."  

At least 86 judges have dismissed his legal team's attempts to prove voter fraud, and frequently ridiculed their flimsy efforts at providing evidence.

Mr Trump said the voting machines were rigged.

"They are so far off it is ridiculous. Able to take a landslide victory and reduce it to a tight loss. This is not what the USA is all about. Law enforcement shielding machines. DO NOT TAMPER, a crime. Much more to come!"

On Monday night, as the procedural gathering of the electoral college ended, Mr Trump retweeted a conservative activist who said: "Election Status: Trump is in the process of proving he won, and Biden is pretending he did."

The president does not need to concede for the transition of power to take place on 20 January.

He does not need to attend Mr Biden's inauguration - if he does not, he will be the fourth president to skip the ceremonial handover of power.

Mr Biden has said he would like Mr Trump to be there, for the sake of the country, although he does not personally care whether he is or not.