Trump tries to leverage power of office to subvert Biden win
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump sought to leverage the power of the Oval Office on Friday in an extraordinary attempt to block President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, but his pleas to Michigan lawmakers to overturn the will of their constituents appeared to have left them unswayed.
Trump summoned a delegation of the battleground state’s Republican leadership, including the state’s Senate majority leader and House speaker, in an apparent extension of his efforts to persuade judges and election officials in the state to set aside Biden’s 154,000-vote margin of victory and grant Trump the state’s electors. It came amid mounting criticism that Trump’s futile efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election could do long-lasting damage to democratic traditions.
Trump’s efforts extended to other states that Biden carried as well, amounting to an unprecedented attempt by a sitting president to maintain his grasp on power, or in failure, to delegitimize his opponent’s victory in the eyes of his army of supporters.
Rick Hasen, an election law expert and professor who has been meticulously chronicling the 2020 race, wrote that there would be “rioting” in the streets if an effort was made to set aside the vote in Michigan, calling it tantamount to an attempted coup.
“We should worry because this is profoundly antidemocratic and is delegitimizing the victory of Joe Biden in a free and fair election,” Hasen wrote on his blog. “It is profoundly depressing we still have to discuss this. But it is extremely unlikely to lead to any different result for president.”
In a joint statement after the White House meeting, Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield said allegations of fraud should be investigated, but indicated they were unmoved by Trump’s claims thus far. “We have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and
and local governments trying to keep frontline workers on the payroll, expanded unemployment insurance, and affordable health care for millions of families.”
The sense of urgency in the meeting was echoed in comments earlier Friday by Biden transition aide Jen Psaki, who warned that “there’s no more room for delay.”
Pelosi said before meeting with Biden and Schumer that she’d make clear “the urgency of crushing the virus,” and how to use the lame-duck session to approve COVID-19 relief and legislation that can keep the government funded.
But prospects for new virus aid this year remain uncertain. Pelosi said talks with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and GOP leadership on Thursday did not produce any consensus on an aid package.
“That didn’t happen, but hopefully it will,” she said.
Also Friday, McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, proposed that Congress shift $455 billion of unspent small-business lending funds toward a new COVID-19 aid package. His offer came after a meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Psaki said Biden, Pelosi and Schumer had already begun working together on COVID-19 relief even before Friday’s meeting.
“They’re in lockstep agreement that there needs to be emergency assistance and aid during the lameduck session to help families, to help small businesses,” she said. “There’s no more room for delay, and we need to move forward as quickly as possible.”
Biden, Pelosi and Schumer also discussed the agenda for the first 100 days of the Biden presidency, “including taking aggressive action to contain COVID-19, providing resources to small businesses, families, schools, and state and local governments to power our economic recovery, and investing in the middle class,” according to the readout.
The president-elect has also promised to work closely with congressional Republicans to execute his governing agenda, but so far, he has focused his congressional outreach on leading Democrats.
The meeting came two days after House Democrats nominated Pelosi to be speaker. She seemed to suggest these would be her final two years in the leadership post.
President Donald Trump continues to block a smooth transfer of power to Biden, refusing to allow his administration to cooperate with the transition team. Specifically, the Trump administration is denying Biden access to detailed briefings on national security and pandemic planning that leaders in both parties say are important for preparing Biden to govern immediately after his Jan. 20 inauguration.
Trying to bypass the Trump administration altogether, Biden on Thursday met virtually with a collection of Republican and Democratic governors.
The Trump administration’s Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Friday on “CBS This Morning” that Biden’s charge that the transition delays would cost American lives is “absolutely incorrect.”
“Every aspect of what we do is completely transparent – no secret data or knowledge,” Azar said.
Trump, meanwhile, is intensifying his brazen attempts to sow doubt on the election results. The outgoing president’s unprecedented campaign to spread misinformation now includes pressuring Michigan officials to block the certification of their state’s election results.
Biden won Michigan by more than 150,000 votes, a margin 15 times larger than Trump’s victory in the state four years ago.
Election law experts see Trump’s push as the last, dying gasps of his campaign and say Biden is certain to walk into the Oval Office come January. But there is great concern that Trump’s effort is doing real damage to public faith in the integrity of U.S. elections.