‘It’s raining’: Kayleigh McEnany refuses to say whether Trump will accept Electoral College vote

An aide toted an umbrella that kept the outgoing press secretary dry

Donald Trump’s top White House spokeswoman would not say whether the president will accept the votes of the Electoral College, which is expected later Monday to designate Joe Biden the president-elect.  

“Sorry, it’s raining,” press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters when asked if Mr Trump would accept the results or if he would speak publicly on Monday.

Ms McEnany had just finished a Fox News interview outside the West Wing and was returning inside on a cold and rainy day in Washington. The day’s print pool reporter noted Ms McEnany “walked with an aide who was holding an umbrella over her head.”

Electors are voting across the country on Monday, with Mr Biden ahead by around 40 votes as of 1:30 p.m. ET. But the president and his loyalists are vowing to continue their legal and public relations fights aimed at overturning millions of ballots – enough to overturn the votes in a handful of key swing states and flip the Electoral margin in his favor.

So far, however, federal judges and Supreme Court justices – including ones nominated by Mr Trump – have thrown out or turned down their allegations of a “rigged election.” 

The president continues to say there was widespread voter fraud in a handful of battlegrounds Mr Biden won. But he and his team have yet to present any hard evidence, with Mr Trump even arguing the president-elect should have to prove there was not fraud.

Courts do not adhere to the proving a negative standard Mr Trump is pushing, making his legal fight a long shot to actually work or have a single ballot invalidated. (None have been so far, notably.)

One senior Trump White House adviser was in campaign mode rather than policy mode on Monday morning as he announced the Trump team plans to send its own shadow Electoral College results to Congress at the same time the official one is submitted to Congress.

"As we speak, today, an alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote and we're going to send those results up to Congress," domestic policy adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News Channel. "This will ensure that all of our legal remedies remain open. That means that if we win these cases in the courts, that we can direct that the alternate state of electors be certified."

The House and Senate will jointly meet to decide on the Electoral College’s official results on 6 January.

At least one conservative House Republican, Mo Brooks of Alabama, has said he intends to challenge the result expected later Monday, a 306-232 win by Mr Biden. (It takes 270 votes to become president-elect.)

But his search for the required one senator to join his challenge appears to have come up short, for now, of securing a dance partner.

The chambers, if Mr Brooks finds a second, would then split up to review the merits of the challenge.

Mr Trump over the weekend panned federal jurists for lacking the “courage” to side with him in his evidence-free fight to have ballots invalidated.