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      Trump Raises $170 Million as He Denies His Loss and Eyes the Future

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      President Trump has raised about $170 million since Election Day as his campaign operation has continued to aggressively solicit donations with hyped-up appeals that have funded his fruitless attempts to overturn the election and that have seeded his post-presidential political ambitions, according to a person familiar with the matter.The money, much of which was raised in the first week after the election, according to the person, has arrived as Mr. Trump has made false claims about fraud and sought to undermine public confidence in the legitimacy of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.Instead of slowing down after the election, Mr. Trump’s campaign has ratcheted up its volume of email solicitations for cash, telling supporters that money was needed for an “Election Defense Fund.”In reality, the fine print shows that the first 75 percent of every contribution currently goes to a new political action committee that Mr. Trump set up in mid-November, Save America, which can be used to fund his political activities going forward, including staff and travel. The other 25 percent of each donation is directed to the Republican National Committee.A donor has to give $5,000 to Mr. Trump’s new PAC before any funds go to his recount account.Still, the Trump campaign continues to urgently ask for cash. On Monday, Mr. Trump signed a campaign email that breathlessly told supporters that the end of November — nearly four weeks after Election Day — represented “our most IMPORTANT deadline EVER.”The Washington Post reported earlier on Monday that Mr. Trump’s postelection efforts had raised more than $150 million. Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, declined to comment on the fund-raising.The $170 million figure, raised in less than four weeks, is an enormous sum that rivals the amounts of money brought in at the peak of the campaign. While a breakdown of the money was not immediately available, the deluge of donations would appear to have paid off any remaining Trump campaign debt (in the first days after the election, the fine print showed that contributions were earmarked for that purpose). The money is also likely to provide Mr. Trump with a sizable financial head start in paying for his post-presidency political activities.Despite the influx of cash, both the Trump campaign and the R.N.C. have reduced the size of their staffs since the election.In October, Mr. Trump’s campaign began automatically checking a box on its website so that more donors would make additional, weekly donations from their accounts through Dec. 14 — the day the Electoral College will vote — to create a postelection revenue stream. Donors can opt out with an extra click, but critics called the tactic misleading.Mr. Trump’s team created the political action committee, known as a leadership PAC, in part to capture the influx of postelection money, according to people familiar with the matter.Currently, donors on Mr. Trump’s website are opted in with a prechecked box to make monthly contributions.Rob Flaherty, who served as Mr. Biden’s digital director, said on Twitter that the huge sums raised by Mr. Trump since the election were “plain and simple grift.”On Monday, Arizona and Wisconsin, two key battlegrounds that Mr. Biden flipped this year, certified their election results, formalizing Mr. Biden’s victory as Mr. Trump and his allies have continued to complain without evidence of fraud. More

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      Arizona and Wisconsin Certify Biden’s Wins: ‘The System Is Strong’

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      Arizona and Wisconsin on Monday certified President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the winner in their presidential elections, formalizing his victory in two additional battleground states as President Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the election continued to fall short.Such certifications would be an afterthought in any other year. But in a political environment where Mr. Trump’s false claims of sweeping voter fraud have created an alternate reality among his die-hard backers in the West Wing and beyond, the results have closed off yet another path to victory for him.Although Mr. Trump has infused daily drama into the normal postelection bureaucratic process by urging his Republican allies to push to block the certification of results or to overturn them entirely in battleground states won by Mr. Biden, the proceedings on Monday were staid affairs.In Arizona, Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state, formalized her state’s results while sitting at a long table with three Republicans who signed the election documents: Gov. Doug Ducey; the state’s attorney general, Mark Brnovich; and the chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, Robert M. Brutinel.Ann Jacobs, the chairwoman of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, signed a document during a three-minute video conference in which she narrated herself certifying Mr. Biden’s victory.“I am now signing it as the official state determination of the results of the Nov. 3, 2020, election and the canvass,” Ms. Jacobs said before holding the document up to the camera. Later Monday afternoon, Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin, a Democrat, announced that he had signed the state’s Certificate of Ascertainment appointing Mr. Biden’s slate of electors to represent Wisconsin at the Electoral College.Mr. Trump, buoyed by his legal team and supporters in the conservative news media, has held out hope that he could somehow prevail in Wisconsin and Arizona, as well as Georgia, where Republican officials on Monday firmly refused to challenge Mr. Biden’s victory there. In all three states, along with Michigan and Pennsylvania, the other two states that flipped from voting for Mr. Trump in 2016 to Mr. Biden this year, the Trump campaign has sought to undermine the results through legal and public relations efforts aimed at delivering the president Electoral College votes.But as has been the case elsewhere, elections officials from both parties in Arizona and Wisconsin declined to undercut their state laws to overturn the popular vote in their states.“We do elections well in Arizona,” Mr. Ducey said on Monday as he signed documents certifying Mr. Biden’s Arizona victory and awarding him the state’s 11 Electoral College votes. “The system is strong.”In Wisconsin, Ms. Jacobs chose to certify Mr. Biden’s victory there one day before the state’s Dec. 1 deadline to do so.Ms. Jacobs’s certification followed the conclusion of recounts, requested and subsidized with $3 million from Mr. Trump’s campaign, in Dane and Milwaukee Counties that found Mr. Biden had added 87 votes to his statewide margin.Ms. Jacobs, a Democrat from Milwaukee, said that certifying the result of the presidential election came at her discretion and that she expected the move to kick-start legal challenges from the Trump campaign.“The power to do this is vested solely in the chair,” Ms. Jacobs said in an interview on Monday.All states must exhaust legal challenges by Dec. 8. Electoral College delegates will meet in their states on Dec. 14, sending the results to Congress, which is scheduled to resolve any final disputes and certify the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6.Unlike in other states where the Trump campaign has claimed, without producing any evidence, that widespread fraud led to Mr. Biden’s victories, Mr. Trump’s legal strategy in Wisconsin is predicated on an effort to throw out hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots on what amounts to a technicality.The Trump campaign has argued in its recount petition that all ballots cast at in-person absentee voting sites before Election Day should be disqualified. The campaign claimed incorrectly that those absentee ballots had been issued without each voter submitting a written application requesting the ballot, but the top line of the absentee ballot applications that voters filled out at early voting sites read: “official absentee ballot application/certification.”That argument would throw out hundreds of thousands of ballots across Wisconsin, including those cast by prominent Trump supporters, such as several state legislators and a top lawyer for the president in Wisconsin, Jim Troupis, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.On Twitter on Monday, Mr. Trump called for Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican, to “overrule” Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state. The president also claimed baselessly that there had been “total election corruption” in Arizona. The Trump campaign has yet to identify any systemic voter fraud in its court challenges.Ms. Jacobs’s certification of the Wisconsin results represents the opening of a window for legal challenges from the Trump campaign, which has argued that the president should have carried the state and its 10 Electoral College votes despite the fact that he lost to Mr. Biden there by 20,682 votes.Two weeks ago, the Trump campaign requested recounts in Dane and Milwaukee, the state’s two largest and most Democratic counties, in an effort to build a legal case against Mr. Biden’s statewide victory. The Trump campaign is also likely to sue to challenge Ms. Jacobs’s certification.Republicans on Wisconsin’s six-member bipartisan elections commission had said that they hoped Ms. Jacobs would wait to certify the presidential election results until after the Trump campaign had exhausted its legal challenges. But the Trump campaign has not filed any lawsuits in Wisconsin; it had nothing to challenge until Ms. Jacobs certified the results of the election.The Trump campaign and Wisconsin Republicans are also expected to challenge Ms. Jacobs’s authority to certify the election results on her own. State law gives her, as the elections commission chair, clear authority and responsibility to certify the election, though other parts of the Wisconsin elections code mention the entire six-member bipartisan commission certifying presidential election results.Glenn Thrush contributed reporting. More

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      Citing Pardon, Justice Dept. Asks Judge to ‘Immediately’ Dismiss Flynn Case

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      WASHINGTON — The Justice Department asked a federal judge on Monday to dismiss the criminal case against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, citing his pardon last week — and making clear that it broadly covered potential legal troubles beyond the charge Mr. Flynn had faced of lying to federal investigators.“The president’s pardon, which General Flynn has accepted, moots this case,” the Justice Department filing said.Mr. Flynn had twice pleaded guilty to a charge of lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations in late 2016, during the Trump presidential transition, with the Russian ambassador to the United States. His original plea deal also covered legal liability for other potential charges related to his work as an unregistered foreign agent of Turkey in 2016.But Mr. Flynn — whose case became a cause for Mr. Trump and his supporters as they attacked the Trump-Russia investigation led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III — sought to change his plea to not guilty. And Attorney General William P. Barr asked the judge, Emmet G. Sullivan of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, to dismiss the case in a highly unusual about-face for the Justice Department.But the judge instead began a review of the request’s legitimacy, appointing an outside critic — John Gleeson, a former federal judge and mafia prosecutor — who portrayed Mr. Barr’s move as a lawless abuse of power to show special favor to a presidential ally, and urged Judge Sullivan to instead proceed to sentencing Mr. Flynn.Last week, with Judge Sullivan yet to issue any ruling, Mr. Trump instead pardoned his former aide, taking political responsibility for ending the case. As a result, the Justice Department said in a new filing, the entire matter is moot.The filing was accompanied by the text of the pardon itself, which had not previously been released. While Mr. Trump had said on Twitter that he was granting Mr. Flynn a “full” pardon, he left unclear how far that would go in terms of any potential legal jeopardy for Mr. Flynn over other matters for which he had not been charged.The pardon, however, was written broadly not only to cover lying to the F.B.I., but to foreclose any legal jeopardy Mr. Flynn might face from a future Justice Department arising from the Turkey matter, his inconsistent statements under oath to Judge Sullivan and any potential perjury or false statements to Mr. Mueller’s team or to the grand juries it used.In a three-page filing accompanying the pardon, the Justice Department emphasized to Judge Sullivan that the language covered “any possible future perjury or contempt charge in connection with General Flynn’s sworn statements and any other possible future charge” that the judge or Mr. Gleeson “has suggested might somehow keep this criminal case alive over the government’s objection.”Judge Sullivan did not immediately file a response to the new motion to dismiss, and Mr. Gleeson did not respond to an email requesting comment.Andrew Weissmann, a former member of the special counsel team who was not directly involved in prosecuting Mr. Flynn, condemned the Trump administration’s handling of the case after Mr. Mueller’s office shut down.“Trump issued the pardon only after Barr debased the Department of Justice by filing a disingenuous motion to dismiss,” Mr. Weissmann said. “Sullivan will have the opportunity to weigh in on his view of all this when he grants the motion to dismiss based on the full pardon.”But the Justice Department filing signaled that under the Trump administration, at least, the Flynn matter is closed.“No further proceedings are necessary or appropriate, as the court must immediately dismiss the case with prejudice,” it said. More

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      No, Georgia’s governor cannot ‘overrule’ its secretary of state on voting.

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      President Trump on Monday morning inaccurately described Georgia’s vote counting process and implausibly urged the state’s Republican governor to “overrule” its Republican secretary of state.Why won’t Governor @BrianKempGA, the hapless Governor of Georgia, use his emergency powers, which can be easily done, to overrule his obstinate Secretary of State, and do a match of signatures on envelopes. It will be a “goldmine” of fraud, and we will easily WIN the state….— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2020
      The tweet was the latest of Mr. Trump’s continuing assault on election results in Georgia and its top Republican officials, which has ignited an intraparty feud in the state.Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia does not have the authority to do what Mr. Trump is suggesting. Moreover, signature verification is already part of the vote counting process.When absentee ballots are received, Georgia’s election officials verify the signature on the envelopes. The ballots and envelopes are then separated to protect privacy, so rechecking the envelopes during a recount would be meaningless.“Georgia law prohibits the governor from interfering in elections. The secretary of state, who is an elected constitutional officer, has oversight over elections that cannot be overridden by executive order,” a spokesman for Mr. Kemp told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.The notion that “the governor has inherent executive authority to suspend or investigate or somehow interfere with this process — that’s just not true,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University. “There is no plausible case here whatsoever.”Unlike the federal government, Georgia does not have a unitary executive and its governor and secretary of state have separate duties. Even the governor’s emergency powers are limited.Mr. Kreis said that Georgia’s code was “very clear” on the kinds of things a governor can do in a state of emergency. Mr. Kemp can move resources and funds and enact temporary measures, Mr. Kreis said, but “he does not have the authority to expressly interfere with elections.”Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, continued to push back on Mr. Trump’s and his allies’ baseless claims of mass voter fraud in a news conference on Monday.“The truth matters, especially around election administration,” Mr. Raffensperger said. “There are those who exploit the emotions of many Trump supporters with fantastic claims, half-truths, misinformation and frankly, they’re misleading the president as well, apparently.” More

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      1918 Germany Has a Warning for America

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      HAMBURG, Germany — It may well be that Germans have a special inclination to panic at specters from the past, and I admit that this alarmism annoys me at times. Yet watching President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign since Election Day, I can’t help but see a parallel to one of the most dreadful episodes from Germany’s history.One hundred years ago, amid the implosions of Imperial Germany, powerful conservatives who led the country into war refused to accept that they had lost. Their denial gave birth to arguably the most potent and disastrous political lie of the 20th century — the Dolchstosslegende, or stab-in-the-back myth.Its core claim was that Imperial Germany never lost World War I. Defeat, its proponents said, was declared but not warranted. It was a conspiracy, a con, a capitulation — a grave betrayal that forever stained the nation. That the claim was palpably false didn’t matter. Among a sizable number of Germans, it stirred resentment, humiliation and anger. And the one figure who knew best how to exploit their frustration was Adolf Hitler.Don’t get me wrong: This is not about comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler, which would be absurd. But the Dolchstosslegende provides a warning. It’s tempting to dismiss Mr. Trump’s irrational claim that the election was “rigged” as a laughable last convulsion of his reign or a cynical bid to heighten the market value for the TV personality he might once again intend to become, especially as he appears to be giving up on his effort to overturn the election result.But that would be a grave error. Instead, the campaign should be seen as what it is: an attempt to elevate “They stole it” to the level of legend, perhaps seeding for the future social polarization and division on a scale America has never seen.In 1918, Germany was staring at defeat. The entry of the United States into the war the year before, and a sequence of successful counterattacks by British and French forces, left German forces demoralized. Navy sailors went on strike. They had no appetite to be butchered in the hopeless yet supposedly holy mission of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the loyal aristocrats who made up the Supreme Army Command.A starving population joined the strikes and demands for a republic grew. On Nov. 9, 1918, Wilhelm abdicated, and two days later the army leaders signed the armistice. It was too much to bear for many: Military officers, monarchists and right-wingers spread the myth that if it had not been for political sabotage by Social Democrats and Jews back home, the army would never have had to give in.The deceit found willing supporters. “Im Felde unbesiegt” — “undefeated on the battlefield” — was the slogan with which returning soldiers were greeted. Newspapers and postcards depicted German soldiers being stabbed in the back by either evil figures carrying the red flag of socialism or grossly caricatured Jews.By the time of the Treaty of Versailles the following year, the myth was already well established. The harsh conditions imposed by the Allies, including painful reparation payments, burnished the sense of betrayal. It was especially incomprehensible that Germany, in just a couple of years, had gone from one of the world’s most respected nations to its biggest loser.The startling aspect about the Dolchstosslegende is this: It did not grow weaker after 1918 but stronger. In the face of humiliation and unable or unwilling to cope with the truth, many Germans embarked on a disastrous self-delusion: The nation had been betrayed, but its honor and greatness could never be lost. And those without a sense of national duty and righteousness — the left and even the elected government of the new republic — could never be legitimate custodians of the country.In this way, the myth was not just the sharp wedge that drove the Weimar Republic apart. It was also at the heart of Nazi propaganda, and instrumental in justifying violence against opponents. The key to Hitler’s success was that, by 1933, a considerable part of the German electorate had put the ideas embodied in the myth — honor, greatness, national pride — above democracy.The Germans were so worn down by the lost war, unemployment and international humiliation that they fell prey to the promises of a “Führer” who cracked down hard on anyone perceived as “traitors,” leftists and Jews above all. The stab-in-the-back myth was central to it all. When Hitler became chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933, the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter wrote that “irrepressible pride goes through the millions” who fought so long to “undo the shame of 9 November 1918.”Germany’s first democracy fell. Without a basic consensus built on a shared reality, society split into groups of ardent, uncompromising partisans. And in an atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia, the notion that dissenters were threats to the nation steadily took hold.Alarmingly, that seems to be exactly what is happening in the United States today. According to the Pew Research Center, 89 percent of Trump supporters believe that a Joe Biden presidency would do “lasting harm to the U.S.,” while 90 percent of Biden supporters think the reverse. And while the question of which news media to trust has long split America, now even the largely unmoderated Twitter is regarded as partisan. Since the election, millions of Trump supporters have installed the alternative social media app Parler. Filter bubbles are turning into filter networks.In such a landscape of social fragmentation, Mr. Trump’s baseless accusations about electoral fraud could do serious harm. A staggering 88 percent of Trump voters believe that the election result is illegitimate, according to a YouGov poll. A myth of betrayal and injustice is well underway.It took another war and decades of reappraisal for the Dolchstosslegende to be exposed as a disastrous, fatal fallacy. If it has any worth today, it is in the lessons it can teach other nations. First among them: Beware the beginnings.Jochen Bittner (@JochenBittner) is a co-head of the debate section for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and a contributing opinion writer.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Dear Joe, It’s Not About Iran’s Nukes Anymore

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      With the assassination by Israel of Iran’s top nuclear warhead designer, the Middle East is promising to complicate Joe Biden’s job from day one. President-elect Biden knows the region well, but if I had one piece of advice for him, it would be this: This is not the Middle East you left four years ago.The best way for Biden to appreciate the new Middle East is to study what happened in the early hours of Sept. 14, 2019 — when the Iranian Air Force launched 20 drones and precision-guided cruise missiles at Abqaiq, one of Saudi Arabia’s most important oil fields and processing centers, causing huge damage. It was a seminal event.The Iranian drones and cruise missiles flew so low and with such stealth that neither their takeoff nor their impending attack was detected in time by Saudi or U.S. radar. Israeli military analysts, who were stunned by the capabilities the Iranians displayed, argued that this surprise attack was the Middle East’s “Pearl Harbor.”They were right. The Middle East was reshaped by this Iranian precision missile strike, by President Trump’s response and by the response of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to Trump’s response.A lot of people missed it, so let’s go to the videotape.First, how did President Trump react? He did nothing. He did not launch a retaliatory strike on behalf of Saudi Arabia — even though Iran, unprovoked, had attacked the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure.A few weeks later Trump did send 3,000 U.S. troops and some antimissile batteries to Saudi Arabia to bolster its defense — but with this message on Oct. 11, 2019: “We are sending troops and other things to the Middle East to help Saudi Arabia. But — are you ready? Saudi Arabia, at my request, has agreed to pay us for everything we’re doing. That’s a first.”It sure was a first. I’m not here to criticize Trump, though. He was reflecting a deep change in the American public. His message: Dear Saudis, America is now the world’s biggest oil producer; we’re getting out of the Middle East; happy to sell you as many weapons as you can pay cash for, but don’t count on us to fight your battles. You want U.S. troops? Show me the money.That clear shift in American posture gave birth to the first new element that Biden will confront in this new Middle East — the peace agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and between Israel and Bahrain — and a whole new level of secret security cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which will likely flower into more formal relations soon. (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel reportedly visited Saudi Arabia last week.)In effect, Trump forced Israel and the key Sunni Arab states to become less reliant on the United States and to think about how they must cooperate among themselves over new threats — like Iran — rather than fighting over old causes — like Palestine. This may enable America to secure its interests in the region with much less blood and treasure of its own. It could be Trump’s most significant foreign policy achievement.But a key result is that as Biden considers reopening negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear deal — which Trump abandoned in 2018 — he can expect to find Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates operating as a loose anti-Iran coalition. This will almost certainly complicate things for Biden, owing to the second huge fallout from the Iranian attack on Abqaiq: The impact it had on Israel.After Trump scrapped the nuclear deal, Iran abandoned its commitments to restrict its enrichment of uranium that could be used for a nuclear bomb. But since Biden’s election, Iran has said it would “automatically” return to its nuclear commitments if Biden lifts the crippling sanctions imposed by Trump. Only after those sanctions are lifted, said Tehran, might it discuss regional issues, like curbs on Iran’s precision missile exports and capabilities.This is where the problems will start for Biden. Yes, Israel and the Sunni Arab states want to make sure that Iran can never develop a nuclear weapon. But some Israeli military experts will tell you today that the prospect of Iran having a nuke is not what keeps them up at night — because they don’t see Tehran using it. That would be suicide and Iran’s clerical leaders are not suicidal.They are, though, homicidal.And Iran’s new preferred weapons for homicide are the precision-guided missiles, that it used on Saudi Arabia and that it keeps trying to export to its proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, which pose an immediate homicidal threat to Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iraq and U.S. forces in the region. (Iran has a network of factories manufacturing its own precision-guided missiles.)If Biden tries to just resume the Iran nuclear deal as it was — and gives up the leverage of extreme economic sanctions on Iran, before reaching some understanding on its export of precision-guided missiles — I suspect that he’ll meet a lot of resistance from Israel, the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia.Why? It’s all in the word “precision.” In the 2006 war in Lebanon, Iran’s proxy militia, Hezbollah, had to fire some 20 dumb, unguided, surface-to-surface rockets of limited range in the hope of damaging a single Israeli target. With precision-guided missiles manufactured in Iran, Hezbollah — in theory — just needs to fire one rocket each at 20 different targets in Israel with a high probability of damaging each one. We’re talking about Israel’s nuclear plant, airport, ports, power plants, high-tech factories and military bases.That is why Israel has been fighting a shadow war with Iran for the past five years to prevent Tehran from reaching its goal of virtually encircling Israel with proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Gaza, all armed with precision-guided missiles. The Saudis have been trying to do the same versus Iran’s proxies in Yemen, who have fired on its airports. These missiles are so much more lethal.“Think of the difference in versatility between dumb phones and smartphones,’’ observed Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. “For the past two decades we have been consumed by preventing Iran’s big weapon, but it is the thousands of small smart weapons Iran has been proliferating that have become the real and immediate threat to its neighbors.’’That is why Israel and its Gulf Arab allies are not going to want to see the United States give up its leverage on Iran to curb its nuclear program before it also uses that leverage — all those oil sanctions — to secure some commitment to end Iran’s export of these missiles.And that is going to be very, very difficult to negotiate.So, if you were planning a party to celebrate the restoration of the Iran-U. S. nuclear deal soon after Biden’s inauguration, keep the champagne in the fridge. It’s complicated.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Recount in two Wisconsin counties reinforces Biden’s victory.

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      Wisconsin’s two largest counties have concluded recounts requested by the Trump campaign, with the results slightly increasing Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s margin of victory and reaffirming his win over President Trump in this month’s election.Dane County certified its election results on Sunday, and Milwaukee County certified its totals on Friday. The Wisconsin Elections Commission is scheduled to meet on Tuesday.The conclusion of the recount adds yet another loss in the Trump campaign’s effort to upend Mr. Biden’s win. The president’s team has been dealt a series of losses in court in several key states, including Pennsylvania and Michigan.As Mr. Trump continued to propagate baseless claims of voter fraud in Wisconsin and across the country, his campaign requested recounts in two heavily Democratic counties. But it had little effect on the final results.In Milwaukee County, Mr. Biden’s ticket received 317,527 votes. Mr. Trump’s ticket received 134,482, according to county results. Both totals increased slightly compared with an earlier count, and Mr. Biden gained 132 votes.Dane County, which includes the city of Madison and the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin, found that 260,094 votes were cast for Mr. Biden, while 78,754 were cast for Mr. Trump. Compared with earlier results, the final tally included 91 fewer ballots for Mr. Biden and 46 fewer for Mr. Trump — a net gain of 45 for Mr. Trump.Before the recount totals were announced, Mr. Trump signaled that he would continue to fight the results. “The Wisconsin recount is not about finding mistakes in the count, it is about finding people who have voted illegally, and that case will be brought after the recount is over, on Monday or Tuesday,” he wrote Saturday on Twitter. “We have found many illegal votes. Stay tuned!”The Wisconsin Elections Commission has estimated that a statewide recount would cost $7.9 million. Milwaukee County estimated that its recount would cost about $2 million, and Dane County estimated about $740,808. According to state law, Mr. Trump’s team will be expected to foot the bill because the margin between the candidates exceeded 0.25 percent.Both Milwaukee County and Dane County live-streamed their recounts. Mr. Trump has insisted that his campaign observers were unable to watch vote counts, a claim that has been disputed. More

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      ‘Dear Joe’: Advice for Biden

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      To the Editor:Dear Joe (may I call you Joe?):Do the possible.There is a mess of massive proportions to clean up. Some problems can be fixed quickly, like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Some can be fixed over time, like our declining status in the world. And some can never be fixed, try as you might.If you believe you can “bring us together,” and bridge the cataclysmic divide we face, you are a bigger dreamer than the DACA children. Do the possible. Clean up and depoliticize the Justice Department, and keep your finger off the scale. Get us on the right side of the climate change fight. Reintroduce us to our allies. Get some infrastructure upgrades started; even some Republicans will agree with that.Make your government look and speak like America. Insist on accountability, even for the rich and powerful. You can do all of this and much more. And whatever else you do, don’t forget who elected you.Don’t expect much help from the Hill. Congress is badly broken, probably for the foreseeable future. Use what you have in the presidential toolbox. Do the possible.Richard WilsonOrlando, Fla.To the Editor:The biggest challenge facing Joe Biden’s presidency is Mitch McConnell. Use every ounce of charm and political skill you’ve got in you, Joe. If we can get Mr. McConnell to get behind creating millions of new jobs and reviving the economy by rebuilding our infrastructure, developing renewable energy and bringing manufacturing back to our soil, voters from both sides of this divided country are going to benefit.It’s the only way to start bringing the two sides together. Turn Mitch McConnell into part of the solution, Joe.Judith CressyNew YorkTo the Editor:The greatest challenge facing President Biden will be the simple fact of governing. That is because his opposition — the Trump Republican Party — will do everything in its still formidable power to undermine him. At every turn. Through means legal and otherwise. The members of that opposition have long since given up any claim to governing in the public interest; it is their own interest, and only that interest, that motivates them.Unfortunately, Mr. Biden will attempt to govern the way he’s operated throughout his political life, that is, by constantly “reaching across the aisle” in an appeal to reason and unity. But the Republican Party, even before President Trump took ownership, is not open to such appeals, as was evident every time President Barack Obama reached across the aisle, only to find that he extended his hand into a nest of vipers.One should not try to make nice. I pray that Mr. Biden and Kamala Harris will acknowledge their opposition for what it has become, not what they think it should be.Nathan WeberNew YorkTo the Editor:The biggest challenge President Biden will face is the ability to focus on the real problems at hand. Covid-19 is raging, our economy is sputtering, many families are on the brink of destitution, to mention a few of the challenges. And complicating these daunting challenges are the calls for accountability for the crimes President Trump has allegedly committed.We can spend the next four years trying to prosecute Mr. Trump. It might be successful and satisfying — but at what price? If we do, surely he will continue to be in the spotlight, and the source of disinformation.My humble alternative: Come Jan. 20, forget Mr. Trump, take him out of the spotlight, and let the New York prosecutors feast on him! Let’s rally behind President Biden’s calls for a bold rational response to Covid, a climate-based investment in our economy and relief for those in need. And let’s (re)create a Democratic Party that pays attention not only to the coastal folks (like me), but also to our brethren in the industrial belt and farms of America.Lastly, President Biden should propose key government reforms — presidential accountability, criminal liability, access to tax returns — that would ensure we never have another Trump.Mark ZillHighlands, N.J.To the Editor:President-elect Joe Biden: Do not issue a blanket pardon to President Trump. He would only use it as “proof” to his followers that he has done nothing wrong and that any claims of wrongdoing were all a charade.Mr. Trump has worked to divide our country and to use his office to promote his own interests. He has immeasurably weakened our country and our standing in the world. He has shown utter contempt for the institutions of our government, for our democracy and for the very lives of our people.Our justice system is strong. Our society is strong. As a society, we need to face the damage that Mr. Trump has done to our nation, his alleged violations of federal tax laws and his self-dealing. Only after that would it be conscionable to consider any form of clemency or pardon.The failure to hold Mr. Trump accountable would demonstrate the United States’ weakness as a nation of laws.James JonesManasquan, N.J.To the Editor:Climate, climate, climate, it’s the climate, stupid.There are many challenges facing Joe Biden’s presidency — Covid, a struggling economy, systemic racism, income inequality, police reform, immigration reform, infrastructure, just to name a few.None of these come close to the challenge of climate change, either in scope or long-term ramifications. I believe that most Americans don’t think it is a hoax and agree it needs addressing, but moneyed interests and the tribal condition of our politics make it much harder to do so.Joe Biden and his team understand the problem and have a good plan to begin to address it. My advice to him would be to keep the focus on this issue as a top priority and to remember that a green economy is good business. For the most part, I support the Green New Deal, as well as the Blue New Deal for our oceans, which doesn’t get much attention. I believe there are plenty of pieces of both deals that a Biden administration can pursue, without getting mired in the pitfalls of partisan politics.Thomas HoopesIpswich, Mass.To the Editor:While curbing polarization and a pandemic are undoubtedly the most pressing issues facing the president-elect, I suspect that the greatest challenges of Joe Biden’s tenure in office will be abroad.The chaos of domestic politics in the last four years has distracted the American public from a worsening international landscape. In the Middle East, Mr. Biden will face an aggrieved Iran; in Asia, a beleaguered Hong Kong; in Africa, a brewing Ethiopian civil war. President Trump may have bombed ISIS to smithereens, but he worsened U.S. relations with key allies while building bridges with autocrats.Members of Mr. Biden’s State Department have their work cut out for them, from rebuilding the World Trade Organization to restraining the excesses of regimes like Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s in Turkey, which have been given free rein under the Trump administration.My advice to Mr. Biden is to repair American foreign policy, while avoiding the moral compromises of the Obama administration, such as the shameful drone program and the failure to end the extrajudicial imprisonment at Guantánamo Bay.Ravi SimonFramingham, Mass.To the Editor:My advice for President-elect Joe Biden on avoiding pitfalls: Please, please don’t tweet. And require your staff not to.Stephen di GirolamoAlexandria, Va. More