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With President-elect Joe Biden set to be sworn into office on Jan. 20, 2021, Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold stopped by Seattle’s Morning News to talk about what current President Donald Trump is (or more accurately, isn’t) doing in his final days in the White House.

WA lawmakers support Trump push for $2,000 aid checks

Trump , after stunning Congressional Republicans on Tuesday night when he called $600 direct payments included in the recently-passed COVID aid package a “ridiculously low” amount.

The president then called on Congress to amend the bill to include $2,000 direct payments, despite largely distancing himself from the negotiating process that led into the proposal passing through the House and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support.

That’s part of a larger trend from the latter days of the Trump presidency, which has seen him draw criticism for absconding from his presidential duties early.

“It really is incredible how little he is doing,” Fahrenthold noted. “The COVID relief bill that passed yesterday was put together basically without really any input from him, he’s not really doing anything to manage the vaccines, and he’s not really even in that much to campaign for the Republicans in Georgia on January 5 in the Senate runoff.”

Instead, his focus has been directed on a series of unsuccessful attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, that’s seen him calling in allies like lawyer Sidney Powell to discuss alternative strategies.

Fahrenthold: Trump squandered ‘so many opportunities to be popular’

“He’s mostly just talking to some out-there conspiracy theorists about you know how they could use the military to overthrow the election,” Fahrenthold said. “He seems sort of fixated with these ideas and attacking anybody who’s not going along with them.”

In the meantime, there’s talk that Trump may very well stay in Mar-a-Lago for much of what’s left of his presidency.

“I’ve heard some speculation,” Fahrenthold said. “People think he’ll just go to Mar-a-Lago and stay, that’s very possible. I don’t see him doing the traditional welcoming of Joe Biden to the White House on January 20.”

Pulitzer Prize winning reporter David Fahrenthold joins ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Radio’s Dave Ross every Tuesday on Seattle’s Morning News. Listen to Seattle’s Morning News weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.