Former VP Joe Biden speaks to his supporters Tuesday night. On Wednesday, Biden's campaign adviser said his team is prepared for any legal challenges that may stem from potentially razor thin Electoral College margins. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
"It's impossible to imagine it will have any merit," Bauer said midmorning Wednesday. "In fact, I would say it's laughably without merit. But if they want to push something up to the Supreme Court, one way or another, presumably he can do that. We are not worried about it."
Speaking from the White House around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, Trump called the election "an embarrassment to our country" and said, "We'll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop."
"We don't want them to find any ballots at 4 o'clock in the morning and add them to the list," he said. "It's a very sad moment."
Bauer acknowledged the possibility of the Trump campaign filing a lawsuit and running it up the chain to the high court.
"We are prepared for any effort any of the Republicans make in any courts to advance the absurd theory the president espoused last night," Bauer said during the Wednesday morning briefing.
"We have had ample evidence, ample notice if you will, that this is a tactic they will try," he added. "Everyone knows what's up here. Election officials know what's going on and courts know what is going on. We are well prepared for it. We have lawyers ready to go, papers ready to go, within an hour of hearing of any step they take."
Asked whether the Biden campaign might launch its own legal challenges, Bauer said, "We don't have to do anything but protect the rights of voters."
In a midmorning press call Wednesday, the Trump campaign projected confidence despite falling behind in Michigan. Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said the campaign's lawyers are standing by to make sure the ballots cast are legal.
"We have our legal teams in place," Miller said. "We want to make sure all legally cast ballots are counted, and we want to make sure illegally cast ballots are not counted."
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien blasted calls by Fox News and The Associated Press that said Biden had won Arizona as "plain wrong."
"If we count all legally cast ballots, we believe the president will win," Stepien said.
Trump continued to cast doubts on the results in a tweet Wednesday morning, writing, "Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted."
Trump added that the pollsters got it "historically wrong." Stepien said the campaign trusts its own math, which forecasted a close election in Wisconsin and not the double-digit margin in the state that some preelection polls predicted. He said Wisconsin is in "recount territory," as the balloting shows Biden with a lead of less than 1%, and he predicted wins for Trump by about 40,000 votes in Pennsylvania and 5,500 votes in Nevada.
While a recount in Wisconsin would not be automatic, the losing side would have the option to call for one should the margin remain within 1%.
By midday on Wednesday, Trump began challenging Pennsylvania's vote-counting process.
"They are working hard to make up 500,000 vote advantage in Pennsylvania disappear — ASAP," he said. "Likewise, Michigan and others!"
Twitter blocked the tweet from immediate view, requiring users to click past a notification that its claims are "disputed and might be misleading."
Several Trump campaign members declared victory for the incumbent in Pennsylvania shortly thereafter.
In a speech Wednesday afternoon, Biden said his campaign believes it has the electoral votes it needs.
"After a long night of counting, it's clear that we're winning enough states to reach 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency," he said. "I'm not here to declare that we've won, but I am here to report that when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners."
In a set of tweets Wednesday afternoon, Trump said his campaign has claimed "for electoral vote purposes" Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, adding that "we hereby claim" Michigan, if "there was a large number of secretly dumped ballots as has been widely reported!"
The latter tweet was also tagged with Twitter's "might be misleading" notification.
Trump also tweeted the link to an article on Breitbart that detailed a group of "election challengers" who had showed up to a building in Detroit where Michigan votes are being counted, demanding to be let inside to view the proceedings.
--Editing by Marygrace Murphy and Haylee Pearl.
Update: This article has been updated to include developments from Wednesday afternoon.
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