Trump's election night lies are a sign of desperation

It appears that President Donald Trump is going to try to hang on to his office the same way he does just about everything else: By lying.

"This is a fraud on the American public," Trump said early Wednesday morning, while the presidential election hung in the balance but after many Americans had gone to bed. "This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly we did win this election."

That's just not true — states were and are counting legally submitted ballots. The process has been slower than many Americans like, of course, but there has been no evidence that anything nefarious is afoot.

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Daniel Dale, who tracks Trump's lies for CNN — it's a whole beat — pointed out the obvious: "The bottom line is that the president and some of his prominent supporters are trying to convince you that there is something illegitimate about legitimate votes being counted."

If there was any comfort to be found, it was that a few of the president's high-profile allies refused to get on board with his false assertions of victory and fraud. "All these votes have to be counted that are in now," said former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. "I disagree with what he did tonight."

This was always going to be Trump's play. In 2016, when it appeared he would lose the election to Hillary Clinton, Trump spent the final campaign days warning of fraud. After he won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote, he set up a commission to prove that millions of illegal votes had been cast for Clinton — it came up empty.

So Trump's attempt to convince the public that his possible loss is illegitimate is in keeping with his character. It is also not to be believed.