Trump in late night rant at Lindsey Graham after it emerges senator privately mocked his ‘third grade’ election whining

Donald Trump has raged against on-and-off ally Lindsey Graham for reportedly admitting in private that the former US president’s election lies amounted to grade school whining.

Mr Graham, as reported by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in Peril, admitted in private that Mr Trump’s allegations of voting fraud were “third grade”.

As did Utah senator Mike Lee, who Mr Woodward and Mr Costa wrote was surprised by Mr Trump’s lawyers theorising that he could win the presidency by asking then-vice president Mike Pence to throw away several Electoral College votes.

Mr Trump, following the publication of those allegations on Tuesday, issued an attack on his part-time ally, Mr Graham, as well as Mr Lee, on Wednesday night.

He wrote that both senators had been “unwilling to fight for the Presidency of the United States”, and that in fact, they had not spoken with the outgoing president “about the 2020 election scam”. The remarks did not acknowledge that there was no fraud.

“Lindsey [Graham] and Mike [Lee] should be ashamed of themselves for not putting up the fight necessary to win,” wrote Mr Trump in a statement via his Save America PAC.

“Republicans who were unwilling to fight for the Presidency of the United States, which would have included at least an additional four Republican Senators, two in Georgia, one in Michigan, one in Arizona, are letting the Democrats get away with the greatest Election Hoax in history,” he alleged.” A total con job!”

Mr Trump appeared to ignore the fact that Mr Graham and Mr Lee – although wary of Mr Trump’s allegations of an “election hoax” – were willing to listen to conspiracy theories issued by his lawyers, and tasked their own offices with searching for traces of “fraud”.

Mr Graham, as reported by The Post, also went as far as calling Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to ask if the state official could throw out mail-in ballots to tip a recount in Mr Trump’s favour.

The election official refused to do so, and the swing-state was finally called for US President Joe Biden.

Both Mr Graham and Mr Lee went on to vote to certify Mr Biden’s win when Congress met on 6 January – and the former president’s supporters stormed the building on the basis of his election lies.

The allegations made by Mr Woodward and Mr Costa are among many stand-out claims about the end of the Trump presidency featured in Peril.