Donald Trump lashes out in a new attempt to tarnish an election he lost

The revenge shot, the president’s latest assault on the infrastructure of American democracy, comes as he refuses to accept his defeat and begin the process of transitioning power to President-elect Joe Biden, a stalemate that is especially dangerous amid from a worsening pandemic.

Trump wrote that he fired Chris Krebs, a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security, for contradicting his own unfounded allegations of wrongdoing. The president, his campaign, and his political allies have made multiple efforts, beginning long before the election, to falsely argue that he was duped into a second term. His effort seems motivated by the desire to explain his clear defeat by the former vice president, but it is also part of a pattern of behavior designed to discredit the Biden presidency and enshrine national divisions that he consciously expanded as a tool of power.

In other apparent attempts to cast doubt on the integrity of the election, unprecedented in modern history, Trump’s allied senator, Lindsey Graham, became embroiled in controversy after calling election officials in Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, three key statuses won by Biden – questioning them about procedures for vote-by-mail ballots, which generally favored Biden. And two Republicans broke with tradition in Michigan, another state where the Democratic nominee triumphed, by temporarily blocking election certification in Wayne County, where Biden beat the president. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, later told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that officials relented and agreed to certify the vote.

Keystone’s top state bank ruled that there was nothing in state law that required ballot watchers to stay within six feet of the vote count, as the Trump campaign had argued. The decision undermines the president’s claim that his supporters were unfairly discriminated against and that therefore the results in Pennsylvania, where Biden won by tens of thousands of votes, should be declared invalid.

Another of Trump’s almost non-existent opportunities to change the outcome of the elections championed by conservative media also appeared to be closing.

Trump cancels Thanksgiving trip

As more and more states begin to certify their election results in the coming days, the already minuscule rationale for Trump and the White House for perpetuating the fiction that he won a second term will recede further.

So far there is no indication that Republican state lawmakers in some key states are ready to fulfill the hopes of some conservative pundits that they will ignore the will of the voters and select pro-Trump delegations to the Electoral College.

Trump’s setbacks in his struggles to overturn the results come when he has practically withdrawn from public view.

Trump has decided to forgo his normal Thanksgiving trip to his Mar-a-Lago resort, administration officials told CNN, and he has had no public engagements for days.

Another senior Republican senator, John Cornyn of Texas, issued a scathing statement about the move, saying it came without any real consultation with US allies, NATO or Congress and would reduce troops to “a potentially unstable level. and dangerous”.

The decision served one of the president’s political goals, but will raise fears of a resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. It was also against the advice of American commanders who are concerned about the strength of the democratic government in Kabul.

New fears about vaccine delays

The potential cost at home of the president’s stubbornness and the lack of approval of millions of dollars in transition funding, access to government agencies and briefings for Biden’s team is becoming increasingly clear.

The vaccine effort will be one of the toughest public health and logistics ventures in history. Any delay in the manufacture and distribution of the vaccine could result in thousands of unnecessary deaths.

“All information on the capacity of the Strategic National Reserve, the assets of Operation Warp Speed ​​and the plans for the dissemination of therapies and vaccines should be shared as quickly as possible to ensure that there is continuity in strategic planning so that there is no there is no lapse in our ability to care for patients, “the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association said in a joint letter to Trump.

In a sign of the complexity of the task ahead, a Government Accountability Office review of the Trump administration’s vaccination effort found several bottlenecks that could delay the approval and distribution of vaccines.

And the government’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been sidelined by the president, stressed that presidential transitions are vital.

“If you don’t have a smooth transition, you will not optimize the efforts that you are making right now,” Fauci told CNN’s Jim Sciutto.

Trump’s negligence is having a devastating impact as Covid-19 hospitalizations hit record levels and the virus spreads through the Midwest and West Mountain states, where Republican governors and voters bought Trump’s downplay of the pandemic and contempt for masks and social distancing.

Biden keep going

Biden, who has called Trump’s failure to relent and open a formal transition of power “shameful”, is continuing his efforts to prepare his administration. In Wilmington, Delaware, on Tuesday, the former vice president consulted with US national security experts and former senior military officials. The group included retired General Stanley McChrystal, who resigned during the Obama administration after Rolling Stone magazine published comments criticizing the former vice president.

Biden said it would be preferable to have access to the normal intelligence reports that presidents-elect enjoy. But you are promoting an image of a commander-in-chief who is ready to get to work.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are still unwilling to confront the president for his refusal to allow a graceful transition. But there are increasing signs that the natural transfer of power, if not formally taking place, is underway.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio referred to Biden as president-elect this week. McConnell has made a career out of not advancing his caucus to political conditions, but he also graciously acknowledged the inevitability of what is to come.

“We are going to have an orderly transfer from this administration to the next,” McConnell said. “What we all say about it is, frankly, irrelevant.”

Even noticing such small rhetorical changes highlights the president’s flamboyant demeanor and his own party’s willingness to confront him. But it is a sign that reality is also coming into focus.