US election: Pressure grows on Donald Trump to go quietly

Broadcasters have reported that members of Mr Trump's family are urging him to concede

Credit: Alaex Edelman/AFP

US 2020 election

Donald Trump was under mounting pressure to concede the US presidential race on Sunday night as former Republican president George W Bush said the election was "fundamentally fair".

Mr Bush became the most prominent Republican to draw a line under the election, saying he had called Joe Biden, the president-elect, and Kamala Harris, the vice president-elect, to congratulate them.

With the Trump campaign escalating calls for donations to fight legal challenges, multiple broadcasters reported that the US president’s wife, Melania, was privately urging him to concede. Mrs Trump disputed the claims, tweeting: "The American people deserve fair elections. Every legal – not illegal – vote should be counted. We must protect our democracy with complete transparency."

CNN reported that Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, had pushed a similar message with the president – but that was described as "not true" by a senior Trump campaign figure.

The confused picture from the White House came as Mr Trump failed to make the customary call to a victorious presidential candidate after the race was called, instead tweeting claims about election fraud and heading to his Virginia golf course.  

The election was called by US media outlets for Mr Biden, the Democratic nominee, on Saturday morning after he pulled ahead in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania.

Mr Bush, who has previously avoided discussing Mr Trump and his policies in public, said: "The American people can have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair, its integrity will be upheld and its outcome is clear," contradicting Mr Trump’s unfounded claim that the election was "stolen" from him.

Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who has been friends with Mr Trump for 20 years, also urged the president to prove his fraud claims or back down during an interview on the TV channel ABC on Sunday.  

Mr Christie summed up his message to Mr Trump, saying: "If your basis for not conceding is that there was voter fraud, then show us, show us. Because if you can’t show us we can’t do this. We can’t back you blindly without evidence."

There has also been a wave of congratulations for Mr Biden from world leaders. Among them was Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who has a close relationship with Mr Trump.

How election day played out

On Sunday, Mr Biden was preparing to sweep away some of the most controversial Trump policies by executive order on his first day in office.  

Mr Trump’s tweets indicated that he was continuing to dispute the outcome. In one message, he quoted former Republican congressman and Trump loyalist Newt Gingrich talking about how "thieves" had impacted the election result and saying "this was a stolen election".

Twitter flagged the tweet as misleading, adding a label which said: "This claim about election fraud is disputed." 

No evidence has been presented by the Trump campaign for the widespread and systematic fraud they have alleged.

Instead campaign figures point to small irregularities, claim their poll watchers did not have full access to monitor counts and complain about rules that let postal ballots date-stamped from before polls closed to arrive after election day.

Mr Trump also tweeted: "Since when does the Lamestream Media call who our next president will be? We have all learned a lot in the last two weeks!"

US media outlets track vote counts and call states for candidates when they believe the results are clear. The official result will be certified over the coming weeks.

Even as reports emerged of Trump family figures urging him to concede there were public signs that other relatives remained full-square behind the campaign’s lawsuits.

Both Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, the president’s adult sons, continued to elevate allegations about electoral malpractice by sharing claims on their Twitter feeds.

Meanwhile the Trump campaign emailed call-outs for donations to Mr Trump’s "election defence fund" at a remarkable pace of almost one an hour in the day after the race was called for Mr Biden.

Mr Trump has said more legal action over the election is due on Monday.