Trump Campaign Officials Reportedly Believe Election Is ‘Definitely Over,’ Have ‘Zero Faith’ In Rudy Giuliani
President Donald Trump has refused to concede the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, appointing his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to lead the effort to overturn the results.
According to a Saturday report from The Daily Beast, top officials on the Trump campaign view this decision as a major mistake and have “zero faith” that the former New York City mayor will be able to prove electoral fraud in court.
According to one adviser, Giuliani and his team have effectively taken over the reelection bid, but almost everyone involved realizes that his legal efforts are all but guaranteed to fail.
“The obvious thing is, this is a sh*tshow,” the person said.
“When the Rudy show started, that was a sidelining of everyone else. At that point, it became an issue of going through the motions and the recognition of, ‘OK, this is definitely over because we don’t have a chance with… these conspiracy theories.'”
A second Trump campaign official described Giuliani’s attempts to overturn the results as a “f*cking pile of garbage.”
In a wild and contentious press conference earlier this week, Giuliani and lawyers Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis spread a number of unsubstantiated claims about the election. At one point, they alleged — without evidence — that the Venezuelan government robbed the commander-in-chief of legal votes and helped Biden win.
Trump was reportedly “thrilled” with the briefing and remains supportive of Giuliani and others, but many of those close to him apparently saw the conference as an embarrassment and a failure.
“It appears that none of us are allowed to say [publicly] that that was one of the weirdest f*cking things we’ve ever witnessed,” one administration official said.
Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager, did not even attend the presser. According to individuals familiar with the situation, even though Stepien has participated in the effort, he believes Giuliani’s strategy is doomed.
In a statement, communications director for Trump 2020, Tim Murtaugh, dismissed these allegations, suggesting that everyone in Trump’s orbit is on the same page.
“We are all here to fight for President Trump and help ensure that our elections are free and fair,” he said.
The vast majority of Giuliani’s legal challenges have failed. As The New York Times reported, Trump’s team has already lost 32 lawsuits.
Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, described Giuliani’s attempts to overturn the results as “slapstick stupid.”
Levitt added that Trump’s main goal is to delegitimize Biden’s victory and sow doubt about the electoral process, suggesting that the commander-in-chief is more concerned with public relations than the law.
