The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Power Up: One reason Trump keeps pushing to overturn Biden win: He's raking in cash

Analysis by
Staff writer
December 1, 2020 at 6:31 a.m. EST

with Brent D. Griffiths

Good Tuesday morning. We missed Brent's birthday last week so please join me in embarrassing our Power Up pun master and partner in crime – HBD! 🎂🍰! Thanks for waking up with us

The campaign

MO MONEY, MO PROBLEMS: President Trump has raised more than $150 million pushing his false claims about a rigged election, but a big chunk of the money could wind up as a down payment for the president's post-White House political operation – another sign that the blundering efforts to overturn the election results may not really be about winning at all.

The president is running out of time and options to undo President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the presidential race after all six key battleground states where the president contested his defeat have now certified their election results as of yesterday. 

Nail to the chief: The politics are shifting as Republicans increasingly defend the election's integrity and call claims of fraud corrosive to democracy.  

  • Georgia's Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger (R) in a news conference Monday called those trying to overturn the election results in the state “dishonest actors” and agents of “massive amounts of disinformation.” He called on voters to have confidence in the results of the second recount that's expected to conclude tomorrow, which was requested by the Trump campaign after Biden's 12,000-vote victory was certified and not expected to alter the results.
  • There are those who are exploiting the emotions of many Trump supporters with fantastic claims, half-truths, misinformation, and frankly, they're misleading the president as well, apparently, said Raffensperger. 
  • Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), after the state that Biden flipped certified its results, insisted he's talked up his state's election integrity and security, including in the Oval Office: “We do elections well here in Arizona. The system is strong, and that’s why I have bragged on it so much.” 

But the president shows no signs of giving up the fight despite the latest certifications and long running list of legal defeats. The influx of political donations is one reason Trump and some allies are inclined to continue a legal onslaught and public affairs blitz focused on baseless claims of election fraud,” our colleagues Josh Dawsey and Michelle Ye He Lee scooped last night. 

  • “The surge of donations is largely from small-dollar donors, campaign officials say, tapping into the president’s base of loyal and fervent donors who tend to contribute the most when they feel the president is under siege or facing unfair political attacks. The campaign has sent about 500 post-election fundraising pitches to donors, often with hyperbolic language about voter fraud and the like."
  • "According to the fine print in the latest fundraising appeals, 75 percent of each contribution to the joint fundraising committee would first go toward the Save America leadership PAC and the rest would be shared with the party committee, to help with the party’s operating expenses. This effectively means that the vast majority of low-dollar donations under the current agreement would go toward financing the president’s new leadership PAC, instead of efforts to support the party or to finance voting lawsuits." 
  • Remember: “The leadership PAC could be spent, for example, to pay for events at his own properties, or to finance his travel or personal expenses. There are very few limitations on how money going to the group can be spent.”

Second wave?: There are still a number of lawsuits filed by Republicans pending in Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona seeking to contest the election results. But ultimately, legal experts told our colleague Rosalind Helderman that the “Trump campaign's legal arguments are thin and they will face an uphill battle in court.” 

  • In Arizona, where Biden defeated Trump by a little over 10,000 votes, election results can still be challenged for five days after the official certification. “If you want to contest the results, now is the time. Bring your challenges,” Ducey tweeted.
  • Wisconsin's certification came after a partial recount that actually identified more votes for Biden, who beat Trump in the state by more than 20,000 votes. Like Arizona, the state has "a provision allowing a campaign that loses a recount five days to challenge the results in court, meaning that the Trump campaign can still seek to challenge [Wisconsin Gov. Tony] Evers’s move,” Roz reports. 
  • “In a statement Monday, [Wisconsin] state elections administrator, Meagan Wolfe, said a judge could still order the certificate of ascertainment to be amended, should Trump win in court," per Roz. “In a tweet over the weekend, Trump said his campaign would file a lawsuit Monday or Tuesday arguing that the recount had included illegally cast ballots.” 
  • The Trump campaign did not provide any additional information when asked for comment on challenging certifications in Arizona and Wisconsin last night.

Some pending cases already have clear problems. In Michigan, for example, a new lawsuit cites a witness who is concerned about election fraud in Edison County, Michigan. “Thing is, there is no Edison County in Michigan,” a political reporter for Bridge Michigan, Jonathan Oosting, tweeted.

Big picture: “Trump and his allies remain 1-39 in court,” Marc Elias, Democratic election lawyer, tweeted.

Meanwhile, Trump spent the evening blasting Ducey and Raffensperger on Twitter, but this could have repercussions for Republicans. 

  • It appears someone from the White House even attempted to reach Ducey mid-certification yesterday afternoon. Ducey previously told reporters that he customized his ringtone to play the song, “Hail to the Chief” when Trump or Vice President Pence called him so as not to miss their calls. That song started playing quietly in the room while he was signing election documents: 

There are fresh concerns that Trump's rhetoric could depress Republican turnout in Georgia's two Jan. 5 runoff Senate races that will decide whether Democrats have full control of Washington next year. 

  • “As Trump tries to burn down democratic institutions on his way out of office, at least some hardcore Trump supporters in the state are turning on the GOP,” our colleague Amber Phillips reports. 
  • Trump himself has seemed to play into this. He recently told reporters the Republican Senate candidates in Georgia are “desperately needed” but the state has "a fraudulent system.” And here's his retweet from last night: 

At the White House

ATLAS SHRUGS OFF: “Scott Atlas, Trump’s pandemic adviser who embraced a controversial strategy of urging Americans to return to work and school with little restriction, and spent months feuding with the White House coronavirus task force’s other doctors, resigned, according to a letter he posted to his Twitter account,” Josh Dawsey and Yasmeen Abutaleb report. (Fox News first broke the story.)

  • He had Trump's ear for a while: “Although Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no infectious-disease or public health background, fell out of favor with senior White House advisers in recent weeks, he was the only medical adviser the president met with regularly for several months.

Health experts repeatedly said Atlas's views were dangerous: “He advocated allowing the virus to spread among young, healthy people to help the country reach ‘herd immunity’ levels — a strategy experts warned would result in tens of thousands of needless deaths — and said the country should focus on protecting the vulnerable and the elderly, including those in nursing homes, even though millions of such people share households with young people,” our colleagues write.

Scott Atlas resigned on Nov. 30 as President Trump’s coronavirus adviser after months of feuding with administration health officials. (Video: Reuters)

PARTY ON?: “While many public health professionals have asked Americans not to congregate in large group settings and avoid travel over the holidays because of the pandemic that has killed more than 266,000 Americans and infected 13 million more, the White House is expected to throw more than a dozen indoor parties, including a large congressional ball on Dec. 10, officials say,” Josh scooped last night.

  • The Trumps don't want to miss out on their last season in the White House: “The president and the first lady are determined to have a final holiday season in the White House, officials said, and concerns about spiking cases and deaths across the country have not stopped the events. Many of the administration’s supporters have taken a skeptical view of the restrictions over the virus and are choosing to attend, officials said.”

Outside the Beltway

A GRIM WINTER BEFORE VACCINES: “The United States has reached an appalling milestone: more than one million new coronavirus cases every week. Hospitals in some states are full to bursting. The number of deaths is rising and seems on track to easily surpass the 2,200-a-day average in the spring, when the pandemic was concentrated in the New York metropolitan area,” the New York Times's Donald G. McNeil Jr. reports.

  • California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) warned he might have to return to stay at home orders: “Of particular concern is California’s intensive care unit capacity. Currently, about 75% of the state’s 7,733 ICU beds are occupied — with 1,812 of them filled by coronavirus patients. Unless things change, the state could exhaust its existing ICU capacity by mid-December, according to projections Newsom presented, the Los Angeles Times's Luke Money and Rong-Gong Lin II report

Still, there's some promising news: “Biotechnology company Moderna filed Monday for emergency authorization of its coronavirus vaccine, capping a scientific sprint that began in January. Moderna’s two-dose regimen is about a week behind a similar vaccine developed by Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech,” Carolyn Y. Johnson reports of the record-shattering speed to develop the shots.

On the Hill

GOP SIGNALS THEY WILL FIGHT TANDEN: “Biden’s pick to lead the powerful White House budget office generated early controversy with Neera Tanden emerging as an immediate target for conservatives and Republican lawmakers,” Jeff Stein, Annie Linskey and Seung Min Kim report.

Two key Republicans voiced their opposition: “One of them — Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who is in line to chair the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee — also said he hopes that Biden will decide not to formally nominate Tanden,” our colleagues write. The Homeland Security panel is one of two that would have to hold confirmation hearings for Tanden.

  • “The concern I have is both judgment, based on the tweets that I’ve been shown, just in the last 24 hours … and it’s the partisan nature,” said Portman, a former Office of Management and Budget director himself. “Of all the jobs, that’s one where I think you would need to be careful not to have someone who’s overtly partisan.”

Josh Holmes, a former top staffer to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, called Tanden “the sacrifice to the confirmation gods.” Mick Mulvaney, Trump's first OMB head before later becoming White House chief of staff, was confirmed with just 51 votes, but the GOP controlled the chamber then.

Where potential 2024 hopefuls are at:

Democrats are rallying behind Tanden: “Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Republicans were being hypocritical, having brushed aside Trump’s frequent Twitter attacks only to now express alarm about things Tanden has said in the past,” our colleagues write.

In the media

Metro is proposing an end to weekend service amid major budget cuts: “Facing a nearly $500 million deficit, Metro is also proposing to cut 2,400 positions through attrition, buyouts and layoffs on top of 1,400 the agency is seeking to eliminate this year. Its 360-route service would be slashed by more than half as the agency raids its capital budget to keep up with preventive maintenance,” Justin George reports.

  • The proposed changes are for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1: “While transit agencies have for months sounded alarms to try to get Congress to swoop in with another round of stimulus money, Metro officials said budget plan is not another warning but a realistic spending plan based on what it can control.”

DOJ cites pardon in asking judge to dismiss Flynn case: “The Justice Department asked a federal judge on to dismiss the criminal case against Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, citing his pardon last week — and making clear that it broadly covered potential legal troubles beyond the charge Flynn had faced of lying to federal investigators,” the Times's Charlie Savage reports.

How America’s deadliest serial killer went undetected for four decades: “What emerges is a portrait of a fragmented and indifferent criminal justice system that allowed [Samuel Little] to murder without fear of retribution by deliberately targeting those on the margins of society — drug users, sex workers and runaways whose deaths either went unnoticed or stirred little outrage. In many cases, authorities failed to identify them as murder victims, or conducted only cursory investigations,” Wesley Lowery, Hannah Knowles and Mark Berman report in the first installment in “Indifferent Justice,” a new Post series.

  • “Over more than 700 hours of videotaped interviews with police that began in May 2018, Little, now 80, has confessed to killing 93 people, virtually all of them women, in a murderous rampage that spanned 19 states and more than 30 years.”