REPORT:
TRUMP PLANS TO BARRICADE HIMSELF IN THE OVAL OFFICE AND REFUSE TO COME OUT IF
BIDEN WINS
The president has told allies he’ll never
concede.
BY BESS LEVIN
NOVEMBER
6, 2020
By now you’ve likely heard that after pulling ahead in Georgia
and, most crucially, Pennsylvania, Joe Biden will very likely be the
next president of the United States. As you’ve probably also heard, Donald
Trump is taking it as well as everyone had expected, ranting and
raving about all kinds of made-up fraud, demanding counts be stopped in one
state and continued in others, and filing numerous lawsuits that stand little
chance of holding up in court because they have no merit (and, in
some cases, have led judges to believe the lawyers attached to them have
recently suffered traumatic brain injuries). At this point, a quasi reasonable
person might say to himself, Okay, I’m going to cut my losses, salvage my last
atom of dignity, and admit defeat. But obviously Donald Trump is not reasonable
and he has no dignity. So instead he’s decided he’ll keep fighting this thing
well beyond the point that it’s hugely embarrassing to do so, and even after
that fails, refuse to acknowledge that he lost and that Joe Biden is going to
be president.
Yes, like George Costanza deciding to just go
back to the office on Monday as if he didn’t quit the Friday before,
Trump apparently thinks he can just go on being president even if the American
people have fired him. According to CNN, Trump reportedly has not
prepared a concession speech and “in conversations with allies in recent days
has said he has no intention of conceding the election.” The decision to go
full delusional has obviously been strengthened by staffers, such as Mark
Meadows, who “have not attempted to come to terms with the president
about the reality of what is happening” and have instead fed into his claims of
fraud; Vice President Mike Pence, who’s been soliciting money
for a legal defense fund; and his adult children, who’ve been spouting absurd
conspiracy theories on Twitter as they watch the ultimate opportunity for
nepotism slip away. While Trump has apparently admitted to some people that he
knows the electoral math has no chance of working out in his favor, he has
“maintained that a prolonged court battle and corrosive rhetoric about election
fraud would sow enough doubt to allow him to refuse to accept the results.”
And while the majority of the president’s
inner circle is more than happy to go along with this sad alternative reality,
a few members have reportedly grown worried that, eventually, someone will have
to sit Trump down and explain that little Donny’s not going to be president
anymore—and at this point, it seems unlikely anyone will be able to get through
to him short of slapping him across the face and screaming, “YOU LOST! IT’S
OVER!” Yes, this is an actual thing allies of the president of the United States
are actually grappling with:
It is a
possibility the president did not consider in a serious way during the
election, despite polls showing him with only a narrow path to victory,
believing that looking past Election Day was bad luck. The delicate matter of a
loss—and a potential post presidential life—was not discussed widely among his
team and was not raised often with the president, who believed adamantly he
would win.
Now
people around Trump are working to identify who might be able to communicate to
him the stark reality. There has been talk of potentially Jared Kushner or Ivanka
Trump, though their willingness to lead a difficult intervention
wasn’t clear.
Obviously it’s not going to be Kushner or
Ivanka, and the only people who think it might be are the ones still laboring
under the impression that Ivanka is a “moderating influence” on
the president. (Also the first daughter joined her father’s disinformation campaign
this morning, tweeting: “Every legally
cast vote should be counted. Every illegally cast vote should not. This should
not be controversial.” So there’s that.) Hilariously, one idea being floated to
convince Trump to accept defeat is “framing potential conversations...around
the idea of preserving his brand for life after being president—and explaining
that dragging out an election he clearly lost would ruin his businesses and
forestall whatever political future he’s hoping for.” This obviously assumes
that Trump’s brand up until this point was something other than insane,
delusional, and spiteful, or that his followers would suddenly be all, Ooo,
this is a side of the guy we never expected. It’s honestly a big turnoff. What
happened to the Trump we know?
On Friday, Biden campaign spokesman Andrew
Bates said that the
former vice president’s staff wasn’t worried about Trump refusing to leave the
White House—not because they don’t believe he’s certifiably insane and might
definitely barricade himself in the Oval Office, but because security will
simply escort him from the premises. “The U.S. government is perfectly capable
of escorting trespassers out of the White House,” he said.
