Donald Trump’s Suggestion To Delay Election Would Make Nancy Pelosi President On January 20, Harvard Prof Says
U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the upcoming presidential election could be delayed would likely lead to a result he wasn’t intending, a Harvard law professor says — the inauguration of Nancy Pelosi as president on January 20.
Trump sparked controversy this week when he took to Twitter to raise the idea that the November vote may need to be pushed back indefinitely due to what he claimed was fraudulent mail-in voting. Trump has regularly attacked the idea of extending vote-by-mail in an effort to keep people away from polling locations during the global pandemic, saying this form of casting ballots is rife with fraud. However, critics say that he has not offered any evidence to back up the claim.
If the election were to be delayed for some reason, Laurence Tribe said that it does not mean Trump would get to remain in the White House. In an interview on MSNBC, the Harvard professor said that if there is no properly elected president, there is a “failsafe” that sets the pre-ordained line of succession into effect.
The Harvard professor pointed out that all of the efforts that Trump is taking to pretend he can extend the date of the election cannot change this date, but it would cast doubt and make the process appear chaotic.
“No matter how much dust he throws into the gears, at high noon on January 20, 2021, if there has not been a new president elected, at that point Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, becomes the president of the United States,” he said.
As The Inquisitr reported, Trump’s suggestion has drawn widespread condemnation and pushback from even some of his biggest backers. These included Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who pushed aside Trump’s assertion and told a reporter on Thursday that the voting would take place as it is scheduled. Others have compared the suggestion to something a fascist leader would offer.
Others joined Tribe in claiming that Trump not sincerely proposing that the day be moved, but rather trying to throw the system into disarray and plant seeds of doubt in the legitimacy of the vote if he were to lose. Some pointed out that this was believed to be the motive behind Russia’s interference in the 2016 race, with the country trying to sow political rifts and cause disarray. Tribe agreed with this view, saying on MSNBC that Trump is “doing Putin’s bidding” to destabilize the United States by calling the legitimacy of the vote into question.
