Trump vows ‘lots of litigation’ over election result as he refuses to take questions from media

President repeats - with no evidence - he is victim of electoral fraud

Donald Trump has vowed to bring “lots of litigation” over the result of the presidential election, as his path towards reelection appeared to narrow in favour of Joe Biden.

In an appearance at the White House, extraordinary even by the standards of the 45th president, Mr Trump repeated - with no evidence - a claim that he had been the victim of fraud.

“If you count the legal votes I easily win,” said Mr Trump. “If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.”

The president’s mood appeared quiet, almost forlorn. Yet his language, and the accusations contained within it, were anything but.

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He said that both he and Mr Biden had claimed various states, and that those claims would most likely end up being decided by the courts, possibly the US Supreme Court, to which he recently appointed a new conservative justice.

“We think there'll be a lot of litigation because we can't have an election stolen like this,” he said.

“I have been talking about this for many months with all of you. And I've said very strongly that mail in ballots are going to end up being a disaster.”

Mr Trump spoke as leads he was enjoying over Mr Biden in Pennsylvania and Georgia were narrowing.

The former vice president currently has 264 electoral college votes, and a win in any of the states to be counted would take him over the threshold to guarantee him the White House.

By contrast, Mr Trump’s tally stands at 214. His campaign is seeking to stop voting in Georgia and Pennsylvania and has asked for a recount in Wisconsin.

While Mr Trump claimed votes had “disappeared” in Democratic-controlled counties, officials from both parties have been overseeing efforts to count and tally the results. Officials say there is no evidence of any fraud having been committed.

“Every day we're hearing horror stories, absolute horror stories. And we can't let that happen to the United States of America. It’s not a question of who wins, Republican, Democrat, Joe, myself,” he said. “We can't let that happen to our country. We can't be disgraced by having something like this happen.”

Earlier, Mr Biden urged people to be patient to allow every vote to be counted in the election, even while insisting he was confident he had defeated Mr Trump.

“In America, the vote is sacred. It's how people in this nation expressed their will,” he said.

“And it is the will of the voters, not anything else, that chooses the president of the United States of America.”

He added: “So, each ballot must be counted. And that's what we're going to see going through now. And that's how it should be. Democracy is sometimes messy."