President Trump, being President Trump, suggested Thursday via tweet that the 2020 presidential election should be delayed “until people can properly, securely and safely vote.”
You knew this was coming.
“At the very least, Trump may be looking to somehow delay certifying elections results or trying to undermine the legitimacy of those results. To what end he wants to do the latter isn’t totally clear. I assume it is with the hope of extending his presidency for as long as he can, but if the election isn’t certified by Inauguration Day, it looks like the speaker of the House would have to serve as an interim president,” said Virginia Tech political scientist Chad Hankinson.
To be clear, the president can’t unilaterally delay the election – and presidential elections have been held consistently every fourth November since 1788, through foreign invasions, civil wars, world wars, pandemics, you name it.
There was rare bipartisan consensus on this today – that the president is basically off his rocker.
“At a time when a global pandemic continues to surge in communities across the country, we need a national strategy for how we will deal with risks to Americans’ health as they make their voices heard,” said Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat.
“Additionally, as federal officials indicate that foreign interference is still a major threat to our electoral system, the administration must work with Congress to build our resiliency against malign actors who seek to divide, misinform, and sow chaos,” Spanberger said.
Republican Sen. John Thune dismissed the presidential tweet as “probably a statement that gets some press attention, but I doubt it gets any serious traction.”
“I think we’ve had elections every November since about 1788, and I expect that will be the case again this year,” Thune said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that the election will go on as planned.
“Never in the history of the country, through wars, depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not had a federally-scheduled election on time. We’ll find a way to do that again this November 3rd,” McConnell said in an interview with WNKY.
Story by Chris Graham
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