'Get Rudy Giuliani off TV': Murdoch's NY Post says math 'near-impossible' for Trump to win re-election

‘It undermines faith in democracy, and faith in the nation, to push baseless conspiracies’

The New York Post’s editorial board has called for Donald Trump to behave with “dignity in the face of likely defeat” as results from the 2020 presidential election show that it is “near impossible" for the president to win his re-election bid against Democratic candidate Joe Biden, who has been declared president-elect.

In an editorial column published on Friday, NewsCorp’s daily newspaper said that the president’s “legacy is secure” enough to mount a 2024 campaign – on the condition that he “quits the conspiracy-addled talk of a ‘stolen’ election.”

The president and his Republican allies have continued to make baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, without providing evidence, suggesting that ballots had been tampered with and voters have cast “illegal” mail-in ballots. Mail-in votes overwhelmingly favoured Democrats, after the president undermined vote-by-mail efforts for months, and several court rulings have dismissed GOP attempts to slow vote counts and invalidate ballots.

In recent weeks, the publication has called the president “an invincible hero" and published front-page stories that attempted to link findings from a recovered laptop to an alleged scheme from Hunter Biden to enrich his father, an effort promoted by the president’s attorney Rudy Giuliani and former adviser Steve Bannon.

But this week, The Post published stories accusing the president of “unfounded” claims of voter fraud organised by Democrats, as well as another that described Donald Trump Jr as “panic-stricken” in the days ahead of results.

Read more: Joe Biden wins the 2020 US election - follow live updates

“But the president’s aides have shown no evidence that the election was ‘stolen,’” The New York Post’s editorial said. “Where Trump won several key states by razor-thin margins to take the White House in 2016, Biden seems to have done the same this year. It undermines faith in democracy, and faith in the nation, to push baseless conspiracies. Get Rudy Giuliani off TV. Ask for the recounts you are entitled to, wish Biden well, and look to the future.”

On Friday morning, Mr Giuliani held a bizarre press conference outside a landscaping business in Philadelphia, presenting several poll watchers who claimed they were not allowed to adequately monitor ballot-counting measures.

He also said the president would not concede.

The Post’s directions to the president follow similar guidance from another Rupert Murdoch property – on Fox News, host Laura Ingraham urged the president to accept defeat with “grace and composure."

“President Trump's legacy will only become more significant if he focuses on moving the country forward,” she said on Friday. "And then, the love and respect his supporters feel for him, it's only gonna grow stronger. And his legacy, more historically significant."

The Post’s editorial claimed that if the president continues his “wild talk to the contrary, he’ll lead his people into irrelevance and marginalize his own voice."

“His years in the White House have transformed the nation, but refusing to let go now will make it easier for his enemies to undo it all,” according to the editorial. “To lock in his legacy, though, Trump must rally Republicans to move forward – by behaving with dignity in the face of likely defeat.”