(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump's continued effort to overturn the Nov. 3 election results got a front-page rebuke from one his most loyal backers: the New York Post.
“Mr. President, it's time to end this dark charade,” the New York City tabloid's editorial board wrote in Monday's edition. The paper, which endorsed Trump for president, tells Trump to “Give it up,” adding “for your sake and the nation's.”
Trump is a regular reader of the New York Post. When he cut off White House subscriptions to certain newspapers last year, the Post wasn't one of them. Paper copies have been delivered to the White House throughout his presidency.
Before the election, a columnist for the newspaper, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., called Trump an “invincible hero.” The paper had also made a controversial decision to publish an expose on the contents of the laptop said to belong to President-elect Joe Biden's son, Hunter -- information the Post said was provided by Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Since Joe Biden's victory, however, the Post has been backing away from Trump and his continued unfounded claims of fraud.
“You had every right to investigate the election. But let's be clear: Those efforts have found nothing,” the Post said Monday. “To take just two examples: Your campaign paid $3 million for a recount in two Wisconsin counties, and you lost by 87 more votes. Georgia did two recounts of the state, each time affirming Biden's win. These ballots were counted by hand, which alone debunks the claims of a Venezuelan vote-manipulating Kraken conspiracy.”
The paper goes on to criticize some of the advice he's been receiving recently and some of the advisers. “Sidney Powell is a crazy person. Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason,” the paper said, referring to the Texas lawyer and Trump's disgraced former national security adviser. “It is shameful.”
The Post warned Trump that by focusing on Congress's normally pro forma certification of the Electoral College results on Jan. 6 in an attempt to persuade lawmakers to throw out the election results, he's taking attention away from the Jan. 5 run-off election for two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia that are key to Republican efforts to control the chamber.
If the GOP loses in Georgia, Trump's legacy will be undone by a Democratic Congress, the paper said.
“Democrats will try to write you off as a one-term aberration and, frankly, you're helping them do it,” the Post editorial said. “The King Lear of Mar-a-Lago, ranting about the corruption of the world.”
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