That Time Trump Was Pretty Sure He Could Use COVID As Excuse To Cancel The Election. Allegedly!
As we said in our post about Donald Trump loving Hitler so much, allegedly, there's another book excerpt we have to look at today, and it's from Michael Wolff's new book (Wonkette cut link). Yeah yeah yeah, we know, sometimes Wolff has been accused of not getting everything exactly right, but there's nothing about this that rings as wrong to us.
Would you be SHOCKED to learn that in the year of our Lord 2020, Donald Trump was continually suggesting using COVID as an excuse to cancel the election, not only because he's a wannabe tyrant, but also because he's that stupid? No, you would not. But that's what Wolff says.
Instead of trying to get people to abide by stay-at-home restrictions to get us past COVID, and instead of encouraging mail-in voting to make the election as safe as possible, Trump was reportedly just thinking he would go ahead and cancel the election.
The full excerpt is at the Times of London's site, and it's amazing. Apparently Jared Kushner had seen polls that said 70 percent of Americans believed mask mandates and testing were the way through the pandemic, and wanted his dumb father-in-law to try that strategy. But Trump was like NOOOOOOOOOOO!
He had a different idea:
If the Democrats were using Covid against him, he would use it against them: they could just use Covid as a reason to delay the election. "People can't get to the polls. It's a national emergency. Right?"
There was often a collective intake of breath whenever Trump went where no one would have dreamed of going. The reaction now was somewhere between gauging Trump's being Trump, with everybody understanding that nine-tenths of what came out of his mouth was blah-blah and recognising that here might be a hinge moment in history and that he really might be thinking he could delay the election. If the latter, then who needed now, right now, to go into the breach?
A reluctant Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff, did: "Mr. President, there isn't any procedure for that. There would be no constitutional precedent or mechanism. The date is fixed. The first Tuesday . . ." Meadows's sugary North Carolinian voice was tinged with panic.
"Uh-uh. But what about — ?"
"I'm afraid — no, you can't. We can't."
"I'm sure there might be a way, but . . . well . . ."
He was sure there might be a way! Didn't he have an Article II that said he could do anything he wanted? Nobody had been taking his advice to drink bleach to cure the COVID. Maybe he really thought he could fix it by just declaring absolute power.
Reportedly, a few days later Trump was at his Bedminster trash palace in New Jersey practicing losing debates to Joe Biden — Wolff says there was way more "golf" than "debate prep" — and he brought it up with Chris Christie.
"I'm thinking about calling it off," said Trump.
"The prep?" said Christie.
"No, the election — too much virus."
"Well, you can't do that, man," said Christie, a former US attorney, half chuckling. "You do know, you can't declare martial law. You do know that, right?"
LOLOL, we are sorry, but the mental image of that incredibly stupid man saying he was going to call off the election because "TOO MUCH VIRUS," it is just making us laugh.
And if this account is true, then no, Trump didn't know that. This dumb motherfucker thought Mike Pence could just refuse to certify the election on January 6. This dumb motherfucker thinks rakes prevent forest fires. This dumb motherfucker thought Greenland was for sale.
Trump did indeed tweet on July 30, back when he was allowed on Twitter, that we should delay the election. In that tweet, he was railing against mail-in voting, saying it was going to be the most "INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT ELECTION," as he set up his fascist Big Lie about the election.
So yeah, we're guessing Wolff got this one right.
There are other fun things in the excerpt, like a summer meeting at the White House attended by Karl Rove where Trump, who according to Rove sounded like the "Saturday Night Live" impersonation of himself, explained that the Democrats were about to replace Joe Biden on the ticket with Andrew Cuomo, once Trump had just literally destroyed Biden with his cleverness and his words. In Trump's addled mind, this was what Democrats wanted him to do. They needed Donald McWordsGood to destroy Joe! It was all part of the plan!
Karl Rove had a question:
"Even assuming they wanted to do this," said Rove, astonished by the ludicrousness of the assumption, "why would Bernie Sanders" — the clear Democratic runner-up — "allow it to happen?"
"Because," the agitated president said, lowering his voice, "this is all being coordinated by the Obamas. And," Trump added, more darkly "there is a very good chance that Michelle will go on the Cuomo ticket as VP."
You heard it here first. The Cuomo/Michelle Obama ticket! Hey remember what we were saying above about how dumb this dude is?
He dumb.
[Business Insider / Times of London (archived)]
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