Trump tries to leverage power of office to subvert Biden win

President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the briefing room of the White House on Friday, November 20 (Susan Walsh/AP)

President Donald Trump sought to leverage the power of the Oval Office on Friday in an extraordinary attempt to block President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, but his pleas to Michigan lawmakers to overturn the will of their constituents appeared to have left them unswayed.

Mr Trump summoned a delegation of the battleground state’s Republican leadership, including the state’s Senate majority leader and House speaker, in an apparent extension of his efforts to persuade judges and election officials in the state to set aside Mr Biden’s 154,000-vote margin of victory and grant the president the state’s electors.