In a discussion among his close aides always trying to understand what they were dealing with, all of them ever struggling to rationalize or explain the Trump phenomenon, one participant offered the view that Trump was like flowing water: he would go where he wanted to go, around whatever obstacle was in his way.

Finally, on Friday afternoon, the insiders went in to see him in the Oval Office, the chairs lined up in front of his desk, the president tight in behind it, his fist in his palm—Kushner, Stepien, Miller, Clark, and, at the president’s invitation, Dave Bossie joining them. Meadows phoned in from his sickbed. Here was the first real conversation, the formal one, almost three days out, about things not looking real good.

“There is,” Kushner told his father-in-law, “still a statistical chance, but, in general, it’s an uphill fight.” That was the team’s characterization of what might more reasonably be no chance at all.

“What do you mean? We’re winning.” Trump had been, as always, watching television nonstop and would have known that even though a definitive call had not yet been made, any sign of optimism was gone from the air. For some in the room, there was the uncomfortable, if not worrisome, sense that the president had frozen himself in the most optimistic moment on Election Night.

“Our margins,” said Kushner “are not large enough.”

“What do you mean ‘not large enough’? How did it go from Election Night, where I’m up by a million votes? Right? A million votes in Pennsylvania? Tell me how that goes? Because they’re stealing it. They’re still counting votes. Where did these votes come from? They’ve got to stop counting right now! Why are we letting that happen?” His anger washed over the room. “Where’s Oz—get him on the phone!” Indeed, the others felt that Oczkowski was already gingerly trying to fade out of the war room and the campaign, having been in scant evidence since election night. “Molly,” Trump called to his assistant. “Get Matt Oz.”

“He’s on,” said Molly Michael, a no-small-talk, late-twenties, strawberry blonde who had replaced his last assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, after she drunkenly told Trump family stories one night in a Washington bar.

“Matt … Matt…”

A stammering Oczkowski now seemed at his most strangled, nearly unable to talk.

“Matt … Matt … you said we’d be fine. We were up by a million votes in Pennsylvania. They’re stealing this. We’ve got to do something.”

“Ummm … yeahhhh … I … well … it’s that … we just don’t know how many ballots are out there,” said Oczkowski. “We just don’t know. But there’s more than we know.”

“They have to stop counting them! They are still coming in after the election. That’s illegal!”

“Hmmmm … yeah, well…” Oczkowski was mumbling.

“What? They have to stop counting!”