Amid Vaccine Rollout and Historic Hack, Trump Remains Focused on Reversing Election

In early Saturday tweets, Mr. Trump chided fellow Republicans, “Don’t be weak fools!” and urged them to join a protest in Washington next month.

“He’s still in the fight-for-every-vote mode,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), a Trump loyalist, who this week acknowledged Mr. Biden’s victory and said the president’s path to overturning the results is “very, very narrow.”

An administration official described the president’s strategy to overturn the election results as: “Let’s throw a giant plate of spaghetti at the wall and hope that at least one noodle sticks.”

In a Friday Oval Office meeting with Sidney Powell, a lawyer who he ousted last month from his legal team, the president discussed the prospect of naming her a special counsel to investigate his claims of election fraud, according to people familiar with the meeting. The president doesn’t have the power to appoint a special counsel.

The president and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, removed Ms. Powell from the Trump legal team last month after Mr. Trump told advisers he found her claims—including that Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela who died in 2013, was behind the rigging of the election—too crazy. During the meeting, the idea of deploying the military to assist in his fight to contest the election results was raised and shot down, one of the people said.

Mr. Giuliani, meanwhile, has pushed the Department of Homeland Security to take control of voter machines, other people familiar with the matter said. He was told the agency doesn’t have the power to do that.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone and chief of staff Mark Meadows firmly pushed back both on the president’s push to name Ms. Powell special counsel and on Mr. Giuliani’s DHS outreach, one of the people said. Mike Flynn, the former national security adviser whom Mr. Trump pardoned last month, was also at the meeting.

Ms. Powell and Mr. Giuliani didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the meeting, which was first reported by the New York Times. The White House declined to comment.

At other times, the president and first lady Melania Trump have shown signs of wistfulness about the prospect of leaving the White House. The president told advisers before the couple canceled their traditional Thanksgiving trip to Florida that it would be their last chance to celebrate the holiday at the White House. In a recent get-together in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump began filling up bags with White House trinkets for his visitors, telling them he didn’t know what to do with the trinkets, according to a person briefed on the meeting.

The first shipments of a Covid-19 vaccine this week marked a breakthrough for the Trump administration. Some of the president’s supporters say they would like to see him do more to capitalize on the achievement.

Mr. Trump acknowledged the historic development by tweeting a video statement last week. But he didn’t attend an event Friday where Mr. Pence received a vaccine shot on live television to promote its safety, instead tweeting during the event about a “Russia hoax.” The White House said the president—who previously had coronavirus—will get the shot when his medical team determines the right time.

And as new details have emerged about a suspected Russian hack that compromised parts of the U.S. government with a level of sophistication that surprised even veteran security experts, Mr. Trump for days was silent. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, a Republican and a frequent critic of the president, lambasted the “inexcusable silence and action” from the White House on the hack.

Mr. Trump, in his first comments on the hack on Twitter Saturday, contradicted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other administration officials by dismissing its severity and questioning whether Russia was responsible. Then he pivoted quickly to the election, saying voting machines could have been infiltrated, an idea government experts have refuted.

“President Trump must get past his grievances about the election and govern for the remainder of his term,” Tom Bossert, Mr. Trump’s former homeland security adviser, wrote in an opinion piece this past week about the hack. “This moment requires unity, purpose and discipline.”

Asked why Americans haven’t heard much from the president this week, White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern told reporters: “There’s a lot of work that goes on that isn’t necessarily public.”

Judd Deere, another White House spokesman, said Mr. Trump is focused on securing stimulus payments for Americans, funding the government, the pandemic response and vaccine distribution.

Advisers say the president has been in touch with lawmakers and paid close attention to stimulus talks, which have yet to result in a deal. They say he has been briefed on vaccine-distribution efforts. The president hasn’t attended a coronavirus task-force meeting in months, including one this past week.

Some of the president’s closest allies worry that his efforts to reverse the election will tarnish his legacy and hurt the GOP, which faces two runoff elections next month in Georgia that will decide the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. The president held one rally in Georgia, but a Saturday rally officials had been preparing for never materialized. Advisers say he may visit the state right before the Jan. 5 election.

“He needs to leave triumphant. He has to stop grousing,” said Stephen Moore, an economic adviser to the president, adding that Mr. Trump should focus on his accomplishments on the economy and the vaccine.

Mr. Trump has told friends he will never formally concede the election, and advisers say he remains determined to retain control of the Republican Party. He has polled advisers on whether he should announce a 2024 campaign immediately to signal he’s still in charge, asking one person, “Do you think I’ll still be the leader of the party if I’m not running?”

People close to Mr. Trump are split on whether he will actually campaign again but say he will continue to float the idea, potentially suppressing the ambition of a large crop of would-be Republican challengers. He intends to play kingmaker in GOP races, aides say, and target those he considers disloyal.

Some advisers say Mr. Trump is continuing to press his fraud claims to raise more money; his claims yielded more than $207 million for his campaign, the Republican Party and his leadership PAC between the election and late November, and his fundraising appeals have continued since then.

Many senior Republicans, including Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, acknowledged Mr. Biden as the president-elect following Monday’s Electoral College vote.

Mr. Trump has continued to push top Republicans to contest the results when Congress convenes to count and certify the electoral votes next month. Mr. McConnell has warned that would be damaging to Republicans running in 2022.

The president also has continued to discuss with advisers the prospect of pardoning a large number of people, including members of his family and his personal attorney, Mr. Giuliani. At one point, according to an administration official, he said he was considering pardoning “everyone I’ve talked to.”

Write to Rebecca Ballhaus at Rebecca.Ballhaus@wsj.com and Alex Leary at alex.leary@wsj.com