Trump is reportedly stewing, calling allies for 'good news,' mulling 2024 run, watching TV, not governing

After nearly a week holed up in the White House or out golfing, President Trump on Wednesday "spent 10 minutes in public honoring America's war veterans — a veneer of normalcy for a White House that's frozen by a defeated president mulling his options, mostly forgoing the mechanics of governing, and blocking his inevitable successor," President-elect Joe Biden, The Associated Press reports.

"The president's mood and thinking," The Washington Post reports, "have ping-ponged since Election Day, with Trump offering drastically different perspectives depending on the day." At times, Trump "has seethed with anger, fuming that he lost to a candidate he doesn't respect and believing that the media — including what he views as typically friendly Fox News — worked against him," AP adds. "But aides say he has been calmer than his tweets suggest, showing greater understanding of his predicament and believing that he needs to keep fighting almost as performance."

"Though he has been in the Oval Office late two nights this week, the president has done little in the way of governing and has instead been working the phones," AP reports. Trump is "calling advisers, allies, and friends," and he's "been 'trying to find people who will give him good news,'" the Post reports, quoting a Trump adviser.

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In addition to phoning "friendly governors — in red states like Arizona, Texas, and Florida — and influential confidants in the conservative media, like Sean Hannity," AP reports, Trump "has been watching even more TV than usual in recent weeks, often from his private dining room just off the Oval Office." He's also been "matter-of-factly discussing a possible 2024 campaign — an indication that he knows his time as president is coming to an end, at least for now," the Post reports. Trump's aides, AP adds, "believe that he will at least openly flirt with the idea to enhance his relevance and raise interest in whatever money-making efforts he pursues."

"He has to go," a GOP source close to the administration tells The Daily Beast. "His team is seeping already. I've passed along four résumés today. ... I really think the worst for him is that all this just kind of goes on without him. He'll sulk out the door and my guess is Biden walks into an empty White House."