Trump camp brands Democrats ‘sore losers’ over recount

Donald Trump and his transition team have accused Democrats of being “sore losers” after Hillary Clinton’s campaign backed an election recount effort based on suspicions foreign hackers manipulated this month’s result in key states.

Reacting to a weekend decision by the Clinton campaign to participate in a recount in Wisconsin, one of three swing states targeted for new counts by the Green party's Jill Stein, the US president-elect took to Twitter yesterday to attack his former rival.

"So much time and money will be spent – same result! Sad," Mr Trump said. His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, went further in appearances on talk shows yesterday, accusing Democrats of undermining the peaceful transition of power.

"Their president, Barack Obama, is going to be in office for eight more weeks. And they have to decide whether they're going to interfere with him finishing his business, interfere with this peaceful transition . . . or if they're going to be a bunch of crybabies and sore losers about an election they can't turn round," she told ABC's This Week.

The Trump offensive came as the president-elect faced fresh questions about how his property empire’s international ties may influence his conduct of foreign policy and more scrutiny of the messy nature of his transition and the divide within his party over key appointments.

Ms Conway yesterday continued her attacks on Mitt Romney, who is believed to be in the running for secretary of state, for his repeated criticism of Mr Trump during the campaign. "The volume [and] intensity of grass-roots resistance to Romney is breathtaking," she tweeted. The 2012 Republican presidential candidate's main rival for the job of chief diplomat is believed to be Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York.

Deep scars

Tensions over the recount highlight the deep scars left by a divisive presidential campaign and how they have been amplified by the US’s electoral college system.

With counting still under way in California, Mrs Clinton's lead in the national popular vote count hit 2.2 million at the weekend. But Mr Trump won the election thanks to a margin of victory of just over 100,000 votes spread across three crucial swing states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Had Mrs Clinton won those states she would now be preparing to enter the White House.

In Wisconsin, where officials on Friday agreed to a recount, Mr Trump had a margin of victory of just 22,000 votes of 3 million cast, according to a tally kept by the Cook Political Report.

Ms Stein won more than 30,000 votes in the state.

While any recount is unlikely to change the election result, Ms Stein and her backers have said they want to address suspicions that foreign hackers could have manipulated the vote by filing illicit absentee ballots electronically.

Cybersecurity experts backed her petition in Wisconsin, calling the possibility of foreign hacking “plausible”.

– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016