Trump could not be more clear in what he's looking for -- what he now needs -- to hang on to power.

"It will take a brave judge or a brave legislature," the president said on Fox News Sunday morning.

What Trump is pleading for is as improbable as it is breathtaking. But there appears to be just enough political bravery of a different sort, coming from state and federal judges as well as state lawmakers, to put the presidency where the voters delivered it early in this long month.

The weekend brought an end to Wisconsin's partial recount -- as funded by the Trump campaign -- with Biden actually netting 87 additional votes, in results scheduled to be finalized Monday. The Trump campaign also lost yet another court challenge in Pennsylvania, this time with the state Supreme Court tossing out a challenge to absentee ballots.

Much attention has rightly focused on the unwillingness of Republican members of Congress to state what's obvious -- that Biden won and Trump lost.

But something profound has been happening at other levels of government. Lawmakers and judges from both political parties have rejected the president's increasingly outlandish claims that he should be awarded a second term.

Those claims have expanded even as Trump's losses pile up in courthouses and state houses. It has not been pretty, but the system continues to hold.

-ABC News’ Political Director Rick Klein