Donald Trump has no plans of yielding the United States presidency after Joe Biden defeats him on November 3 and is now plotting to retain power even after his loss at the polls.
This never-before-seen possibility was held open by Vanita Gupta, a noted civil rights lawyer and the former United States Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Obama administration. She's now a key member of an informal, bipartisan group preparing for Trump to disregard the results of the November 3 election. Most polls taken since Biden launched his candidacy for president in April 2019 have shown Trump losing the presidency to Biden.
Gupta asserts Trump is now engaged in a campaign to "delegitimize a lawful election" this November. She said Trump's aim is simple: he won't cede power.
Gupta says proof of Trump's plan to not step down despite his defeats in the popular and Electoral College votes in November is his continuing assaults on the the legality of mail-in voting. Trump himself has voted by mail on some elections, which makes his opposition to this process all the more perplexing but proves his intent to disrupt the upcoming election.
Mail-in voting is taking on an importance out of proportion to its historic role due to the raging COVID-19 pandemic. Both Democrats and Republicans fear the pandemic will make in-person voting impossible in some states. This leaves mail-in voting the only recourse for voters in these states or localities. There's also the possibility mail-in votes could be the deciding factor in determining who the next president will be.
Political pundits have noted the expansion of mail-in voting due largely to the pandemic could also mean the presidential election results will be delayed by a week or more due to the time it takes to count these ballots.
Gupta contends Trump's attacks on vote-by-mail programs are a clear signal he intends to claim Biden and the Democrats will cheat him of the presidency through widespread voter fraud. She pointed out Trump's already talking about how this will be a rigged election.
Trump also keeps falsely claiming that if more and more people vote by mail-in ballots, the election will be rigged. "This is out of his playbook," she said.
Gupta sees Trump nonsensical attacks on mail-in voting, which is legal in at least 10 states, as part of Trump's plan to deliberately undermine the November 3 election well in advance of voters casting ballots.
The pandemic will make the possibility of Trump contesting the election results all the more likely, according to Gupta. This means the media, which have their own quick counts, shouldn't call the November 3 election too quickly.
The possibility Trump won't leave office in January 2021 despite his defeat at the polls was first made public in March 2019 by lawyer Michael Cohen, Trump's former friend and fixer. Cohen told a congressional committee that "Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 there will never be a peaceful transition of power."
