It has been a rough few months for US President Donald Trump. In October he told a stadium full of cheering supporters that he was running against the "single worst candidate" in the history of American presidential politics. "Could you imagine if I lose? I’m not going to feel so good. Maybe I’ll have to leave the country, I don’t know," he had said at the time.
Now, with multiple lawsuits having failed to achieve his desired outcome, and several states having certified their results in favour of his rival, President Trump does not seem poised for a comeback - even to many of his ardent supporters. The latest in a series of blows comes from the Supreme Court, where a Texas lawsuit backed by the President was rejected. The lawsuit had sought to overturn the November 3 presidential election results in four battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
And the President - who incidentally appointed three of the judges in the apex court - is not happy with the SCOTUS. "The Supreme Court really let us down. No Wisdom, No Courage!" the President tweeted on Saturday.
The President nominates someone for a vacancy on the Court and the Senate votes to confirm the nominee, which requires a simple majority. Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett were appointed to the Supreme Court during Trump's tenure. The appointments had been overshadowed with controversy, with Kavanaugh being accused of sexual misconduct by several women and Barrett being appointed amid the elections as Democrats cried foul.
In the past the President has showered praise on his appointed justices.
Saturday's posts however were of a very different nature.
"So, you're the President of the US, and you just went through an election where you got more votes than any sitting President in history, by far - and purportedly lost. You can't get 'standing' before the Supreme Court, so you 'intervene' with wonderful states that, after careful study and consideration, think you got 'screwed', something which will hurt them also. Many others likewise join the suit but, within a flash, it is thrown out and gone, without even looking at the many reasons it was brought. A rigged election, fight on," he tweeted.
And Twitter was prompt to flag the tweets as being "disputed" claims.
But while Trump now acknowledges the possibility of a defeat, he is making efforts to keep the "fight on". Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, on Friday indicated that the President's legal team will continue to challenge the outcome of the presidential elections, even as the Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit.
"There's nothing that prevents us from filing these cases immediately in the district court in which the president of course would have standing, some of the electors would have standing in that their constitutional rights have been violated," he said in an interview. "We're not finished... Believe me," he concluded.
