Hours later, Trump seemed to acknowledge that the move was aimed primarily at injecting uncertainty into an election that seems determined to undermine, although he did not depart entirely from the notion of a delay.
Trump has no authority to delay an election, and the Constitution gives Congress the power to set the date to vote. Lawmakers from both parties said almost immediately that the election was unlikely to be delayed and even some of Trump’s allies said his message reflected the despair of a very losing candidate.
However, although he had no teeth, Trump’s message provided an opening, feared by Democrats, that he and his supporters could refuse to accept the presidential results. By questioning it ahead of time, Trump is preparing those in his camp to doubt the legitimacy of any outcome that emerges in the first weeks of November.
“With universal voting by mail (not absentee voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACTIVE and FRAUDULENT election in history. It will be a great shame for the United States,” he wrote. “Delaying the election until people can vote properly and safely?”
During a press conference in the late afternoon, Trump was asked to explain his motivations. At first, he suggested that he was trying to avoid a lengthy counting process that could take days or weeks if a large number of voters voted by mail.
But he finally recognized the real impact of his message: Sow doubts early on any results that emerge in November.
“What people are looking at now is … all these stories are correct about the fact that these elections will be fraudulent, they will be arranged, manipulated,” he said.
“Everyone is looking at him,” Trump added. “A lot of people say it will probably happen.”
There is no evidence that voting by mail leads to fraud. The American elections have taken place during wars and depressions without delay. The general election was set on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November since 1845.
Trump has previously tried to stoke fear and lay the groundwork to question election results by promoting the idea that voting by mail leads to widespread fraud and a “manipulated” election. Democrats have warned that their efforts are intended both to suppress voting and to provide a reason to refuse to leave office if they lose.
Trump representatives had previously scoffed at Democratic suggestions that he would try to delay the election, claiming that they were unfounded conspiracies. His tweet on Thursday marks the first time Trump has openly raised the idea of changing the voting date.
On Thursday, the Trump campaign said the president was offering a consultation.
“The president is only asking one question about the chaos the Democrats have created with his insistence on all mail ballots,” said campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley. “They are using the coronavirus as a means of trying to institute universal mail voting, which means sending every registered voter a ballot, whether they request it or not.”
His tweet comes as a series of recent polls across battlefield states, and even the states he easily won in 2016, show him en route or practically tied with former Vice President Joe Biden, and widespread disapproval of his handling. of the pandemic.
While Trump encouraged states to lift restrictions on companies and said schools should reopen for in-person learning in the fall, his suggestion Thursday that elections could be delayed due to the pandemic undermines his efforts to act as if the virus was under control.
Instead, Trump turned to racial divide and to attract white voters as he works to build support among voters that he won in 2016. And he has taken steps to undermine the election results in ways that reflect an extraordinary break in tradition. .
When asked during an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace last week if he would accept the election results, Trump declined.
“No, I’m not going to just say ‘yes.’ I’m not going to say ‘no,’ and I didn’t say it last time either,” he said.
When asked about the issue at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Attorney General William Barr said he “had no reason to think” that the upcoming elections will be “rigged.” But he did say he believes “if you have a wholesale mail vote, you substantially increase the risk of fraud.”
But historically, voting by mail has not led to massive voter fraud. And nonpartisan election experts say the possibility of foreign entities printing millions of fraudulent mail ballots in November is highly unlikely.
The President does not have the power to change the date of the election. Election day is established by statute of Congress, and most experts agree that it cannot be changed without the approval of Congress.
Responding Thursday, both Republicans and Democrats said Trump’s suggestion did no good.
“I don’t think it’s a particularly good idea,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the president’s main allies.
“I think that is probably a statement that gets the press’s attention, but I doubt it will receive any serious traction,” said Senator John Thune, the Senate Republican whip.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi simply responded to Trump’s tweet by citing the passage in the Constitution that gives Congress the authority to set the election date.
Biden has previously raised the possibility that Trump may try to delay the election.
“Mark my words: I think you are going to try to delay the elections in some way, come up with an explanation for why it can’t be held,” Biden said at a virtual fundraiser in April, according to a group report.
At the time, a Trump spokesman said the claim amounted to “inconsistent ramblings of the conspiracy theory of a lost candidate who is out of touch with reality.”
CNN’s Tara Subramaniam, Abby Phillip and DJ Judd contributed to this report.
.
