Donald Trump took a few moments on Saturday to pose with a bride at his Sterling, Virginia golf club – just after learning that TV networks had called the presidential election for rival Joe Biden.
The president had just got off his golf cart and was making his way inside the club house when he walked past a wedding party photoshoot.
Despite the pressures of his crumbling campaign, the president made sure to stop and talk to the bride before posing for pictures.
Trump grinned and gave a thumbs up to the camera as he stood with the bride and her bridesmaids.
He then spoke with the group briefly before saying ‘Have a great life’, and walking up stairs and inside the club house.
President Donald Trump posed for pictures with a bride and her brides maids at his Virginia golf club on Saturday
The president managed to put on a brave face and encouraged the women to walk over with him to have their picture taken
The photoshoot came minutes after finding out he had lost the election to Joe Biden while playing a round of golf
As Trumped walked off, the party began to cheer and clap with some heard shouting ‘We love you!’
One woman, talking to her friend, can be heard saying: ‘That was so cool… I can’t breathe.’
Trump did not make any comment, nor was he asked about the election result.
The president has defiantly refused to concede the president election to Joe Biden, claiming the election is not over and saying his campaign would unleash a new round of lawsuits on Monday.
The 45th president was in the middle of a round, when the Associated Press and major US television networks called Pennsylvania for Mr Biden, making him the president-elect.
Trump was met with mix of cheers and boos as he returned to the White House after playing a round of golf in Virginia
The presidential motorcade is pictured traveling through the streets of Washington D.C. – the first time he had left the White House since losing the election
Trump charged the media with working the Biden campaign to declare a victory. Multiple news organizations called Pennsylvania as going for Biden, handing him the more than 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.
How he reacted: Trump furiously tweeted a series of claims about the election
‘We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed. The simple fact is this election is far from over,’ President Trump said in a statement released by his campaign.
Trump argued several states would have recounts of their ballots. Georgia officials said there would be one there and the Trump campaign has requested one in Wisconsin. The campaign could also request one in other states with close contests, including Arizona.
‘Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor,’ Trump said.
President Trump, arriving back at the White House after finding out on the golf course that the election had been called for Biden
Trump arriving back at the White House on Saturday afternoon while Biden supporters flooded the area to celebrate his victory
Is this the moment he learned? Donald Trump was on his Trump National golf course in Sterling, Virginia, when the call was made, with a so-far unidentified foursome
President Trump leaving the White House on Saturday for his golf course in Sterling, Virginia
President Trump was playing golf on Saturday when the eletction was called for Joe Biden
Trump takes a swing on his golf course in Sterling, Virginia, on Saturday morning. It’s unclear what time the photo was taken but the networks called the election for Biden at 11.25am
In the rough: Donald Trump now faces a steep uphill path to successfully challenge tens of thousands of vote majorities in the states won by Joe Biden in court by December 8
U.S. President Donald Trump plays golf as news media announces that Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Joe Biden has won the 2020 U.S. presidential election, in Sterling, Virginia
Recounts can only be initiated under specific circumstances, and the rules vary from state to state. Regardless of how they’re conducted, recounts rarely change the outcome of a race.
President Trump said more legal action will come on Monday.
‘Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated. The American People are entitled to an honest election: that means counting all legal ballots, and not counting any illegal ballots. This is the only way to ensure the public has full confidence in our election,’ he said.
The president has continued to claim that there is widespread voter fraud, but failed to provide any evidence.
He accused the Biden campaign of hiding voter fraud by not cooperating with his team’s request for a recount.
‘It remains shocking that the Biden campaign refuses to agree with this basic principle and wants ballots counted even if they are fraudulent, manufactured, or cast by ineligible or deceased voters. Only a party engaged in wrongdoing would unlawfully keep observers out of the count room – and then fight in court to block their access,’ he said. ‘So what is Biden hiding? I will not rest until the American People have the honest vote count they deserve and that Democracy demands.’
Before the race was called Trump showed public reluctance to concede the election amid an internal war among his family and advisers over his next steps.
Shortly before Biden was declared the winner of the contest, Trump went to his Virginia golf club, tweeting in route: ‘I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!’
In his own statement, Mr Biden said he is ‘honored and humbled by the trust the American people have placed in me and in vice president-elect Harris,’ adding: ‘In the face of unprecedented obstacles, a record number of Americans voted. Proving once again, that democracy beats deep in the heart of America.’
As Trump golfs and tweets, Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer and one of the biggest advocates of the president keeping up the fight, was in Pennsylvania, leading a legal battle go try and win the state – without there is no second term for Trump.
Giuliani held a press conference in Philadelphia with a few poll workers he claimed ‘were uniformly deprived of their right to inspect any part of the mail-in ballots.’
He offered no proof of his allegations but said a lawsuit would be launched by the campaign on Monday.
The president argued in his statement Saturday: ‘In Pennsylvania, for example, our legal observers were not permitted meaningful access to watch the counting process. Legal votes decide who is president, not the news media.’
But Trump’s campaign lawyer conceded to a Philadelphia judge on Thursday that the president’s team did have election observers in the room to watch mail-in ballots be counted in Pennsylvania.
‘I’m sorry, then what’s your problem?’ said U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond, a President George W. Bush appointee, after Trump lawyers conceded that observers had been admitted to the facility.
The Trump campaign was trying to get an injunction to halt vote counting in Philadelphia, a heavily Democratic area that was expected to add to Joe Biden’s vote total.
They argued their observers had been unfairly barred from parts of the city’s ballot-counting area inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
But, under questioning, Trump lawyer Jerome Marcus conceded: ‘There’s a non-zero number of people in the room.’
Diamond urged the Trump campaign and the Philadelphia election board to come to a resolution. The two parties ultimately agreed that a fixed number of observers from each campaign — up to sixty — could be admitted, according to NPR.
The Trump’s campaign suit was then dismissed as moot.
The Trump campaign – for all its lawsuits in the battleground states – have offered no solid proof of voter fraud. And the election observers – volunteers from both parties watching officials count ballots – have flagged no major incidents with the counting.
Quietly, the campaign seems to be preparing for a concession.
No major official from the re-election effort is scheduled to be on one of the Sunday public affairs shows – the all-important programs that set the agenda for a week and would offer Trump’s team a chance to argue the president’s false claim of illegal votes.
But a concession would require one thing: the cooperation of President Trump.
And no one seems to know how to break the news to him.
‘They know he’s lost, but no one seems willing to tell King Lear or Mad King George that they’ve lost the empire,’ one Republican in frequent touch with the White House told The Washington Post.
Trump’s allies are divided into two camps – one led by his family that thinks he still has a path to victory through the legal system and the others who think it’s time to concede.
The Trump campaign has named David Bossie, a Trump adviser who is not a lawyer, to lead the legal challenges.
On Saturday morning, before the race was officially called, Trump fired off a series of angry tweets, making a series of unfounded claims including that tens of thousands of mail-in votes had been ‘illegally’ cast because they arrived after 8 pm on election day, hundreds of thousands more should not be considered because they were not observed being counted and that he had won ‘by a lot’.
He tweeted that his supporters have been banned from observing vote counting in some of the key swing states despite shouting ‘stop the count!’ and that officials had been ‘covering windows’ to block their views and forbidding them from overseeing the process.
He also promised a ‘big’ press conference in Philadelphia, where vote counting continues, where he said his lawyers would be present, then was seen leaving the White House in casual dress.
While in the car, he tweeted a link to a Breitbart story about a ‘glitch’ in vote counting software, then said: ‘I WON THIS ELECTION BY A LOT!’. He was seen arriving at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, shortly afterwards.
Trump has not yet offered any proof of his claims. His campaign has vowed to file lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada to argue that the results cannot be trusted, and he is demanding a recount in Wisconsin.
In the rough: Donald Trump now faces a steep uphill path to successfully challenge tens of thousands of vote majorities in the states won by Joe Biden in court by December 8
President Trump was seen leaving the White House on Saturday morning after firing off a barrage of tweets claiming the election results were fraudulent. It’s unclear where he is going
The President was dressed casually with a white MAGA hat and sweater. He was not seen in person yesterday
Overnight, faith among Trump’s allies seemed to dwindle and calls for him to concede the race mounted.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham prepared viewers for the likelihood that he had lost.
She said: ‘For now, it’s time to take our gains, learned from our defeats, and confidently expand one of the greatest political movements for the past 100 years,’ she said.
She said a Trump defeat did not mean that the ‘America First movement’ was over, but that ‘President Trump’s legacy will only become more significant if he focuses on moving the country forward’.
Trump tweeted again on Saturday morning claiming the election had been fraudulent and that he’d won ‘by a lot’
Donald Trump Jr., who earlier in the week told his father to ‘fight until the death’ and urged their fans not to give up at a rally, posted a photograph of the pair on Instagram in the Oval Office, which he captioned: ‘Thanks for always fighting so hard for America dad, it’s an honor to be in that fight with you.’
It was a softened tone from the angry rally where he said America had turned into a ‘banana republic’ that had to be reclaimed.
The Wall Street Journal – which, like Fox, is owned by Rupert Murdoch – published an op-ed from its editorial board urging Trump to concede.
‘If Mr. Biden has 270 Electoral College votes at the end of the counting and litigation, President Trump will have a decision to make.
‘We hope in that event he would concede gracefully,’ they said.
In its editorial board piece on Friday night, the Wall Street Journal said Trump had ‘accomplished a great deal’ since 2015.
‘He has accomplished a great deal since descending on that Trump Tower escalator in 2015, including his historic first victory and a strong re-election performance when he was supposed to lose in a rout. We’d hate to see that legacy ruined by a refusal to accept the normal transfer of power.
‘But if defeat comes, he will serve himself and his country best by honoring America’s democratic traditions and leaving office with dignity.’