Don Jr tests positive, as his father dodges media questions

Donald Trump’s pre-and-post election attempts to delegitimise the outcome of the 2020 presidential race appeared to have made deep in-roads with Republicans who told pollsters he "rightfully won" the 3 November vote. 

According to a new Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Wednesday, almost half of Republican respondents agreed with the president’s baseless claims of a “stolen” and “fraudulent” election. 

Altogether, 73 per cent of those polled agreed that Mr Biden won the election while 5 per cent thought Trump won. But when asked specifically whether the Democrat had "rightfully won," Republicans showed they were suspicious about how Biden's victory was obtained.

68 per cent of Republicans said they were concerned that the election was "rigged," while only 16 per cent of Democrats and one-third of independents were similarly worried.

Reuters

While Donald Trump and his administration continue to deny Joe Biden’s transition team full access to federal agencies and assistance, members of the Democrat’s coronavirus advisory board have issued another warning about the consequences of those delays to the incoming administration’s Covid-19 response.

"Not only do we need cooperation in order to ensure that we have a good vaccine delivery plan — we really need it across the board,” said Vivek Murthy, one of the co-chairs of the advisory board, to Politico. “That cooperation will impact how effective we are at closing the testing gap, ensuring that hospitals and doctors and nurses have enough protective equipment like masks and gloves and make sure we have enough syringes and swabs to proceed with a vaccination campaign.”

Mr Murphy’s comments follow Mr Biden’s warning that “more people may die” if the Trump administration did not cooperate on Covid-19, which has infected more than 11 million Americans killed almost 250,000. 

It is the latest example of the Biden team’s frustrations at Mr Trump’s failure to concede the election, as well as the implications that come with it. 

CNN International anchor Christiane Amanpour says she "regrets" comparing Donald Trump's presidency to Kristallnacht, a Nazi attack on Jews widely regarded as the beginning of the Holocaust.

Ms Amanpour said she had been trying to highlight the outgoing president's repeated attempts to undermine democracy and his assault on the truth, but accepted it was inappropriate to draw parallels between the two periods in history.

Matt Matthers has the report: 

Donald Trump tweeted two words - “Trump votes” - at news of 2,500 uncounted ballots found during Georgia’s recount, of which nearly two-thirds favoured the president. 

Officials say the development - which was to have been caused by an administrative error - won’t materially impact the results of the election in the state, which Joe Biden is still expected to carry by around 13,000 votes when the audit is complete. 

Mr Trump had claimed without basis that the state’s voting machines illegally transferred “thousands” of ballots from him to Mr Biden, for which there is no evidence. 

Mayank Aggarwal has the report: 

After claiming that Wisconsin’s election was rigged against him, the US president’s campaign has until 5pm on Wednesday to submit paperwork requesting a recount along-with an estimated  $7.9 million fee. 

Whether that happens still remains to be seen, while the campaign has not provided any details of specific examples of the “irregularities” they earlier alleged. 

“The legal team continues to examine the issues with irregularities in Wisconsin and are leaving all legal options open, including a recount and an audit,” said Jenna Ellis, Trump 2020 legal adviser.

Mr Trump has also been promising a recount in Wisconsin as part of a fundraising plea made after he lost the state, and the election, to Joe Biden. 

After he returned to a courtroom as an attorney for the first time in decades on Tuesday Rudy Giuliani will continue to push Donald Trump’s case in a Pennsylvania court later today, as the campaign seeks to reverse the outcome of state’s election results.

Having found no evidence to support claims of “illegally processed ballots”, the Trump campaign had dropped such allegations before the court hearing, and is instead seeking to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its results.

Mr Giuliani, who was appointed to steer the president’s legal challenges against the election outcome, at one point on Tuesday suggested that it was illegal for Pennsylvania officials to help residents vote. 

"I don't expect that he would know the Pennsylvania election code," an opposing lawyer, responded. 

The president’s personal lawyer  - and his allegations of election fraud - could be headed to the Supreme Court, writes the Independent’s Chris Riotta.  

Mr Giuliani has already suggest that the Trump campaign’s bid to stop Pennsylvania from certifying its election results was doomed to fail, after all.  

And, in an interview with Fox Business on Tuesday, the former New York City mayor said: “Frankly, that is a case that we would like to see get to the Supreme Court.”

Election officials in Georgia’s counties are approaching a midnight deadline to complete a recount, which comes ahead of a Friday deadline for statewide certification.

The hand count is meant to ensure that the state’s new election machines accurately tabulated votes and isn’t expected to change the overall outcome, state election officials have repeatedly said.

Joe Biden led Donald Trump by a margin of about 14,000 votes before the tally, and is expected to have a 13,000 margin once votes are certified. 

It is still possible for the loser to challenge the the final result, if the margin is less than 0.5 per cent. 

The US president, who has written almost a dozen Twitter posts on Wednesday, was still apparently furious at the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Aiming directly at election officials in Georgia, where a recount is due to confirm Joe Biden as the winner before the week ends, the president called  the process and state officials a “joke”.

His attack comes hours before counties in the Peach State are due to report the results of election audits, which comes before the statewide certification of results in the presidential contest by Friday. 

The Democratic president-elect, Mr Biden, is expected to retain a lead of around 13,000 votes over Mr Trump, despite the discovery of some 2,500 votes for the president earlier this week. 

Donald Trump has responded to a Reuters/Ipsos survey showing how Republicans believed his claims of a “rigged” election against Joe Biden, by making even more baseless claims about “machine ‘glitches’ all over the place”, and other claims. 

What else did you expect, at this point…