Power is draining away from Trump, and the world is starting to ignore him

tporter@businessinsider.com (Tom Porter)  

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• President Donald Trump is refusing to accept his loss to Joe Biden.
• But the world is moving on. Many in the US and around the world are paying less attention to Trump since a second term slipped from his grasp.
• The Biden transition team has forged ahead in the meantime, and Biden on Tuesday said it didn’t matter whether Trump conceded.

It’s been five days since President Donald Trump lost his reelection bid, with projections on Friday that Joe Biden would become the 46th president of the United States.

Trump has refused to concede defeat, and the Republican Party is backing his groundless allegations of mass voter fraud. But it is becoming clearer that the rest of the world is moving on.

Here are some striking examples:

• Trump is losing Fox News. On Monday, the network cut away from the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, as she repeated baseless voter-fraud allegations in a press briefing.
• World leaders have lined up to offer their congratulations to Biden. They include people with whom Trump clashed, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but also those Trump praised, such as UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
• Though Trump has blocked the formal transition process, Biden has continued to assert himself. The president-elect has announced key appointments and on Tuesday said Trump’s lack of cooperation wouldn’t slow him down.
• Even some of Trump’s aides have privately said his efforts to contest the election are hopeless. That said, many leading Republicans have supported Trump’s baseless fraud claims and refused to acknowledge Biden’s win.
• At the same time, social-media platforms are becoming fiercer in blocking Trump’s message. During the election, Twitter and Facebook stepped up fact-checking of his posts and have restricted the posts’ reach.

Multiple reports indicate those close to Trump consider it unlikely that he will ever formally concede the election. But with his grip on power getting looser by the day, it matters less and less.