I assume you saw the President’s comments. It’s just a disgrace. An absolute disgrace. You know that. It’s not surprising. I’m going to take a bit of time to share some considered thoughts. But what we saw looked to me like a televised psychological collapse. We know that weakness, losing, humiliation are like searing agony for him, his own personal kryptonite. And now he is there with it, alone. This will get brutal and ugly and stupid. But it’s out of his control. He’s being abandoned by the key political and institutional locuses of power. It’s ugly. It will get uglier. But it’s ending.
We Might Be About To Find Out Who Was On Trump’s Second-Term Purge List—Even If He Loses
It now seems possible that, win or lose the election, President Trump is thinking about firing a number of top officials who have long been within his crosshairs. There have been murmuring for several weeks about who Trump might replace if he wins a second term. But as the odds that former Vice President Joe Biden will win the election steadily increase, some of that chatter has only gotten louder.
Bannon Suggests Trump Should Behead Fauci And Wray In Second Term
Despite President Trump’s chances of an election victory continuing to shrink, his former chief strategist Steve Bannon has ideas for the President’s second term — gruesome and violent ideas, that is, for Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI director Christopher Wray. Continue reading “Bannon Suggests Trump Should Behead Fauci And Wray In Second Term”
Legislative Appointment Of Electors: An Extreme Legal Move And An Unlikely Profile in Courage
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
As the President’s path to victory narrows, some of his supporters (including his son, Donald Jr.) are beginning to float one of the most extreme legal moves possible: that a state legislature directly appoint presidential electors, ignoring the people’s votes. That sort of power grab after the election has already been held would be unprecedented and unconstitutional. But legal arguments aside, it would be pointless. There simply aren’t enough states where a state legislature might cross that Rubicon for it to change the results of the election. For that, we can thank an unlikely cast of politicians: the Republican leadership of the Pennsylvania state legislature. Continue reading “Legislative Appointment Of Electors: An Extreme Legal Move And An Unlikely Profile in Courage”
Trumpers Lash Out As Establishment GOP Shoves Them To Arms Length
The President’s inner circle threw a public tantrum Thursday as it became clear that establishment Republicans were keeping them at arm’s length.
Continue reading “Trumpers Lash Out As Establishment GOP Shoves Them To Arms Length”
Trump’s Election Lawsuits: Full of Sound and Fury, But Mostly Signifying Nothing
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
With lawyers descending on Pennsylvania and other battleground states, the news might sound like an echo of the 2000 presidential election. The President has said he wants the Supreme Court to intervene to declare him the winner, stoking memories of the Court’s decisive intervention in Bush v. Gore. His campaign has filed (or said it will file) lawsuits across the country, from Pennsylvania to Michigan to Georgia to Nevada.
But this isn’t Florida in 2000. There are critical differences between the legal and political landscapes in the 2000 election and today that make it exceptionally unlikely that any of this legal wrangling will matter. Continue reading “Trump’s Election Lawsuits: Full of Sound and Fury, But Mostly Signifying Nothing”
Control Of The Senate Now Appears To Hang On The Georgia Runoffs
Hopeful Democrats, stunned by likely losses in the North Carolina and Maine Senate races, have turned their eyes to Georgia where two January runoffs represent their only chance at retaking Senate control.
Continue reading “Control Of The Senate Now Appears To Hang On The Georgia Runoffs”
Plaintiffs In USPS Suit Want Facilities Scoured For Ballots As PA Mail-In Deadline Looms
Plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the United States Postal Service said Thursday that it is crucial that USPS take steps to “sweep” facilities and ensure that any outstanding ballots be delivered by Friday in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
Where Things Stand: Behold The Spectacle
President Trump warned us before the election that, as early and mail-in ballots were tabulated and key states shifted blue, he was going to falsely claim that his victory was being stolen. And he warned us he would send his lawyers in to prevent that supposed theft.
But we didn’t know it was going to look like this.
Is the President’s Team Humoring Him?
One thing I’m starting to wonder about is whether the President’s campaign staff and legal team is … to put it bluntly, humoring him. The President looks like he’s in the process of losing fairly decisively. But his campaign is making a series of pretty small-bore legal challenges. Nothing that gives him a chance – even if successful – of shifting the dynamic. To be clear, that’s what should happen. You’re not supposed to try to steal the election. And you shouldn’t have a corrupted federal judiciary open to helping you do that. But if the President is going to win this in the courts – or win it in the High Court – it’s time to go big or go home. But so far he’s not.