Trump’s final days in office marked by rage and denial, White House staff say

WASHINGTON — Over the past week, President Donald Trump posted or reposted more than 135 messages on Twitter lashing out at the results of an election he lost. He mentioned the coronavirus pandemic now reaching its darkest hours four times — and even then just to assert that he was right about the outbreak and the experts were wrong.

Moody and by accounts of his advisers sometimes depressed, the president barely shows up to work, ignoring the health and economic crises afflicting the nation and largely clearing his public schedule of meetings unrelated to his desperate bid to rewrite the election results. He has fixated on rewarding friends, purging the disloyal and punishing a growing list of perceived enemies that now includes Republican governors, his own attorney general and even Fox News.

And while he will leave office in 46 days, the last few weeks may only foreshadow what he will be like after he departs. Trump will almost certainly try to shape the national conversation from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his relentless campaign to discredit the election could undercut his successor, President-elect Joe Biden. Although many Republicans would like to move on, he appears intent on forcing them to remain in thrall to his need for vindication and vilification, even after his term expires.

On Saturday night, Trump took to Georgia for his first major public appearance since the Nov. 3 election. A rally to support two Republican senators in a runoff next month offered a high-profile opportunity to vent his grievances and promote his false claims that he was somehow cheated of a second term by a vast conspiracy.