Networks call Georgia for Biden as security officials say vote was ‘secure’

Does Donald Trump really believe he has a chance of remaining in the White House for a second term as he pursues legal battles against election winner Joe Biden?

Not according to one aide who spoke anonymously to NBC correspondent Peter Alexander:

The largest law firm representing the Trump campaign in its attempts to legally challenge votes in key states has pulled out of a lawsuit in Maricopa County, Arizona.

A judge has granted Snell & Wilmer’s request to withdraw as counsel of record for the Republican National Committee, which together with the Trump campaign and the Arizona Republican Party had brought legal action alleging the county incorrectly rejected some votes cast on election day last week week.

Snell & Wilmer partners Brett Johnson and Eric Spencer first moved to withdraw on Sunday, a day after the case was filed. The firm has said it does not comment on its client work.

Two other large law firms that have represented the Trump campaign in election litigation, Jones Day and Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, have faced an onslaught of criticism for taking part in the president’s efforts to throw doubt on the election result.

Snell & Wilmer’s withdrawal from the Maricopa County case came ahead of Joe Biden being declared winner in Arizona by Decision Desk HQ, one of the last remaining analysts which had yet to call the state. Associated Press, Fox News and several other networks had already projected the Democrat’s victory.

Donald Trump has woken and begun retweeting Georgia GOP senate candidates in the two very tight races there.

Run-off votes in January will decide how much of Joe Biden’s legislative agenda the president-elect is likely to be able to bring into law - if both Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are victorious, Republicans will hold a slim majority in the upper chamber and be able to stymie the Democrat’s plans.

Mr Trump is on a retweet spree urging supporters to “hold the line” against Democratic challengers in the state.

And, as you’d expect, he is still making false claims about fraud/wrongdoing in the presidential election, which he has lost.

In case you missed this one yesterday - indicative, perhaps, of how world leaders are being pragmatic and getting on with accepting Joe Biden as the next US president.

Meanwhile, the outgoing leader of the free world is using his time to tweet conspiracy theories.

As Donald Trump continues to avoid conceding or congratulating Joe Biden on an election win, so too have some world leaders been conspicuously absent, writes Gino Spocchia.

Mr Biden, who by Wednesday had taken eight congratulatory calls from America’s closest allies, was awaiting similar messages from the leaders of Russia, Brazil, North Korea and others.  

Lindsey Graham says he will donate $1m of his campaign funds to two GOP senators trying to win runoff votes against Democratic challengers in Georgia.

The South Carolina Republican, who was reelected last week, is trying to tip the scales in two races that will determine who controls the Senate next year - and how much of his legislative agenda Joe Biden, the new president, will be able to enact.

Mr Graham told Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends on Thursday that Republicans needed to counter a "tsunami of liberal money" flowing into Georgia ahead of the 5 January runoff elections.

Democrats already control the House, and Joe Biden is the president-elect after beating Donald Trump in their White House contest.

In the Georgia runoffs, Democrat Jon Ossoff is looking to unseat Republican senator David Perdue and Democrat Raphael Warnock is facing off against Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler.

Mike DeWine, the Republican governor of Ohio, adds his name to the list of people within Donald Trump’s party publicly going against the president’s claim he has won the election.

But he still gave some support to Mr Trump’s various legal actions, none of which has yet exposed the widespread fraud the outgoing president claims has taken place.

“Joe Biden is the president-elect,” Mr DeWine told CNN on Thursday, adding: "The president, and his campaign, has every right to go into court, our courts are open, our courts are the best place, frankly, to adjudicate facts.

“I’m a former prosecutor, I’m a great believer in the ability to have your courts, to go in and make a case."

United Nations officials are “confident” the incoming Biden administration will restore vital US funds to its Palestinian refugee agency, which announced this week it had run out of money and will not be able to pay 28,000 members of staff, writes Bel Trew.

Unrwa supports 5.7 million Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. It announced on Wednesday it needs $30 million in the next two weeks to ensure it can pay salaries this month and an additional $40 million to cover salaries in December.

The president of the United States is taking the fight to his former favourite TV channel by retweeting people (just ordinary people, I think?) who say they are dissatisfied with Fox News.

One even claimed Fox was “pandering to the left”.

Mr Trump is pushing Newsmax and OANN, the hyper-Trumpian faux-news channel, as alternatives.

“#foxnewsisdead,” writes one Twitter user promoted by the president.

This is all because Fox News was the first network to call Arizona in favour of Joe Biden in the presidential election, and because its news side has been less tolerant of Mr Trump’s conspiracy theories since the poll.

Yet, in his retweet tirade, Mr Trump also promotes Greg Gutfield, a Fox pundit. 

The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, accused Republicans of a “political performance” and “temper tantrum” fueled by their collective “fear” of Donald Trump that is leading them to join him in not acknowledging he appears to have lost the election.

“Stop denying reality,” Mr Schumer said on Thursday. “The election is not in doubt. This is nothing more than a Republican temper tantrum, nothing more than a pathetic political performance for an audience of one: Donald John Trump."