Here’s how Trump accidentally helped Pennsylvania’s attorney general destroy his election fraud lies

Pennsylvania attorney general Josh Shapiro beat back at least 40 legal challenges to Donald Trump's election loss, and he explained how the twice-impeached one-term president undermined his own case.

The Democratic attorney general told The Daily Beast's "New Abnormal" podcast that his office started making preparations for the challenges as soon as Trump trotted out his "Big Lie" well before the election, and he credits his team's success to that advance work.

"When the former president began talking about how vote by mail was not okay and that the Democrats were going to try and steal the election -- all of his greatest hits -- I immediately put together a team in my office made up of lawyers from both our criminal division and our civil division," Shapiro said. "We basically had three focuses that we were trying to deal with first."

State officials made sure voters had access to the polls and ensured voting was safe, Shapiro said, and they got ready for the challenges that Trump signaled were coming.

"How could we deal with the inevitable legal challenges that would come after the election, trying to deny people's votes from being counted?" Shapiro said.

Shapiro said his efforts were also helped by the fact that the rare cases of voter wrongdoing were actually committed by people attempting to cast ballots for Trump.

"I'm staying in this game, I'm not going to be deterred," he said. "I am unafraid of what they're putting forward."