President Donald Trump wants to overturn the election results to give himself another four years, but a White House reporter said he hasn't performed his duties for weeks or even months.
The president spent the last month, after returning from the hospital for coronavirus treatment, campaigning for re-election, and Associated Press reporter Jonathan Lemire told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Trump had basically stopped doing the job he has already lost.
"Successful recounts tend to pick up a few dozen votes, maybe 100 or so at most, in terms of changing sides, and that's not necessarily to mean they would break for President Trump," Lemire said. "Joe Biden may pick up more votes in a recount. The margins in these states are too big and these legal challenges seem destined to fail. The White House has had no meaningful success in any legal challenge. Even, as you say, if one state was to turn its result over, he would still be well short."
"What next?" he added. "How long do Republicans let him play out this game? I've talked to some of his advisors and said, what's the harm in giving him a few days to come to term with this as they explore his legal options. That's what we've heard from Senate Majority Leader [Mitch] McConnell and others."
However, the delay puts the nation at risk, because there's not a smooth transition period for the president-elect and the current president has basically abandoned his responsibilities.
"This is slowing a transition at a time of true crisis," Lemire said. "The coronavirus pandemic is surging out of control across the country, the worst it's ever been, state by state setting record number of cases each day, and we have a president who, in the meantime, has largely abandoned his day job. He himself has not attended a coronavirus task force briefing in months. His public schedule does not show he's received an intelligence briefing since Oct. 1. The White House hasn't read out a foreign leader call in weeks."
"He is simply not doing governing the country right now at a time of crisis," Lemire added, "and we're seeing Joe Biden try to step into that breach. His campaign offered readouts of several foreign leader calls yesterday who offered congratulations to the president-elect. We know that he has already organized his coronavirus task force, but there's a limit to what he can do right now. He is not the president, he is not receiving these briefings. There comes a moment, and we may already be there, where President Trump's refusal to cooperate with the transition, with the government agencies refusing to authorize the win and allowing these Biden landing teams to enter these government agencies could be putting lives at risk and endangering the entire nation."