Pranksters are flooding Trump's election fraud hotline to mock the president over his election defeat

• An election fraud hotline set up by the Trump campaign is being deluged by pranksters mocking the president over his election defeat, reported ABC News.
• The hotline was set up last week in an attempt to substantiate Trump's claims the election was being rigged, as vote counts and defeats in key states showed power slipping away from him.
• The president's key allies are reportedly divided, with some in favor of pursuing election fraud claims in the courts, and others believing he needs to accept defeat.

Staffers are fielding hundreds of calls a day on a special hotline set up by the Trump campaign for Americans to report incidents of voter fraud, ABC News reported.

But instead of recording a flood of evidence substantiating Trump's unproven claims of widespread ballot fraud, they are fielding a majority of calls from pranksters, who mock the president over his election defeat before hanging up, according to the outlet.

Trump has refused to concede defeat despite news networks, including the usually steadfastly loyal Fox News networks, calling the election for Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Saturday. Projections showed Biden had clinched victory in the key swing state of Pennsylvania.

The hotline was set up last week in the Trump campaign's headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, as vote counts showed power slipping from Trump's grasp and the president baselessly insisted that millions of ballots cast for Biden were invalid.

According to ABC, Trump's team is divided over how to respond to Trump's defeat, with some believing that a series of legal challenges launched by the president's campaign are doomed to failure, while others are backing them.

On Saturday, Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, held a press conference in a suburban garden center after an apparent venue booking mix-up. During the event, Giuliani, who is spearheading the legal challenges, repeated Trump's allegations that the election was tainted by widespread voter fraud. The campaign has so far not produced evidence to justify the claim.

Read more: Legal problems galore await Donald Trump now that he's lost reelection and his presidential immunity

Later that day, the Trump campaign released a statement in which the president insisted the election was not over, hours before President-elect Biden called for national unity in his victory speech.

Sources close to Trump say the president is unlikely to formally concede defeat at any stage, though some aides are reportedly attempting to broach the subject with him.