Trump aides reportedly had to explain to the president that his demand to 'STOP THE COUNT' would actually guarantee his loss
- President Donald Trump's aides had to explain to him that his call to stop ballot counting would actually ensure he lost the election, according to multiple reports.
- The Trump campaign has filed lawsuits in multiple states to stop their vote counts, and Trump has claimed electoral fraud without giving evidence. He also tweeted Thursday: "STOP THE COUNT!"
- New York magazine's Olivia Nuzzi said she learned of a phone call Thursday in which Trump said he "assumed people knew that by 'stop the count' he didn't mean he wanted to stop the count."
- Aides also persuaded Trump to switch to saying "stop the fraud," which they believe is a "better message," The Washington Post and NBC News reported.
- Update: On Friday, Democratic nominee Joe Biden won the presidential race with a victory in Pennsylvania, Insider and Decision Desk HQ project.
President Donald Trump's aides had to explain to him that his impassioned calls to stop vote counting in the US presidential election would actually guarantee him defeat, according to multiple reports.
On Wednesday morning, Trump falsely claimed victory in the election at a time when most of the key battleground states had not been called. The president has since called for counting to stop, baselessly taking issue with the legality of counting mail-in ballots after Election Day.
"STOP THE COUNT!" he tweeted Thursday morning.
After that tweet, Trump aides scrambled to reel in the president, multiple reports said, pointing out that calling for all counts to be stopped would in fact hand Joe Biden victory.
According to The Washington Post, the president's senior advisors "intervened, explaining to the president that he needed to be more precise about just which vote counts he wanted halted."
"He did not want all of the states to stop counting votes, they added, because that would lead to a Biden victory," The Post added.
Stopping the count on Thursday would have guaranteed Biden victories in Arizona and Nevada — which, combined, are worth 17 electoral votes and would see Biden reach the 270 needed to secure the White House — while stopping any gains Trump might've made in Pennsylvania, Georgia, or Michigan.
After the explanation, the aides persuaded Trump to tweet "stop the fraud" instead, both The Post and NBC News reported.
"The aides think fraud is a better message and are trying to get him to stick to it," NBC News wrote.
Indeed, on Thursday afternoon, the president tweeted: "STOP THE FRAUD!"
Olivia Nuzzi, the Washington correspondent for New York magazine, tweeted a similar report on Thursday.
"I'm told that President Trump can't get his messaging straight on counting the votes because he doesn't understand what 'stop the count' means," she wrote.
"On a call this morning, an adviser had to explain to him that if they stopped counting votes right now, he would lose the election."
In a second tweet, Nuzzi said: "Trump said he assumed people knew that by 'stop the count' he didn't mean he wanted to stop the count. The adviser had to explain to him that actually people figured he meant he wanted to stop the count when he said 'stop the count.'"
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When asked during an MSNBC appearance early Friday "whether they understand the math in the White House," Nuzzi simply replied: "No."
On Wednesday, Trump supporters were seen chanting "count those votes" outside a ballot-counting site in Phoenix and "stop the count" at a ballot-counting site in Detroit.
As things stood at 5:30 a.m. ET on Friday, Biden was inches away from obtaining the 270 electoral votes needed to win the 2020 presidential election. Biden moved ahead of Trump in Georgia, was leading in Nevada and Arizona, and was narrowing Trump's lead in Pennsylvania.