What Happens if Trump Won't Step Down?
Source: Slate
What Happens if Trump Wont Step Down?
National security expert Josh Geltzer on why we should be prepared for the worst.
By DAHLIA LITHWICK
SEPT 13, 2019 6:25 PM
In February, Georgetown Law professor Josh Geltzer began to ponder aloud what would happen if President Donald Trump refused to leave office were he to be defeated in 2020. It sounded far-fetched, but Geltzer isnt a conspiracy theorist. Actually, he served as senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council and, prior to that, as deputy legal adviser to the NSC and counsel to the assistant attorney general for national security. When he wrote his essay suggesting that perhaps it was time to start preparing for if Trump, who has repeatedly shown a willingness to overstep his constitutional authority, simply refused to leave the Oval Office, he was met with silence. When Michael Cohen warned in his March testimony before Congress, given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 there will never be a peaceful transition of power, he too was met with awkward silence. But the anxieties gradually began to grow. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fretted about this possibility in a May interview in the New York Times. When Politico probed the question this summer, it noted: Constitutional experts and top Republican lawmakers dismiss the fears as nonsense, noting there are too many forces working against a sitting president simply clinging to powerincluding history, law and political pressure. But commentators now seem less confident in those forces.
On Thursday, Edward Luce at the Financial Times noted how often Trump jokes about having a third term, observing that, because of Trumps belief that he could face prosecution after he leaves office, no other US president has faced the prospect of being re-elected or going to jail. He added that for Trump, losing the 2020 election is an existential threat, and he has openly invited foreign interference, while Mitch McConnell refuses to even consider legislation to secure the vote. And even if Trump is truly joking when he tweets that he deserves to be credited two extra years in his existing term, years he believes were lost to the Mueller probe, or riffs on staying on the job long after hed been term-limited out, the tweets send a dangerous message to his loyalists.
I circled back to Geltzer (who is also a frequent Slate contributor) to find out whether his thinking on this once fanciful hypothetical has changed since the winter. Our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, is below.
Dahlia Lithwick: So do you want to start with an I told you so?
Joshua Geltzer: Never! Plus youve already said it for me.
In all seriousness, Id love it if the concerns I expressed in February could be simply forgotten. After all, concerns about a peaceful transfer of power shouldnt have to occupy Americans minds. Whatever the shortcomings of various presidents and indeed various presidential candidates, over the years theres been a shared commitment to honoring the will of the people, whatever that might prove to be.
-snip-
Read more: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/joshua-geltzer-election-peaceful-transition-of-power-donald-trump.html
MyOwnPeace
(16,926 posts)Yeah, all of the OTHERS have, but, seriously, when has IQ45 EVER cared about "honoring the will of the people?"
HA!
He's stomp over 64 million of us just to keep his fat a$$ in the White House (shit-hole that it is!) ((or so-he-claimed)).
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Tiggeroshii
(11,088 posts)Russia will support him and the millions of crazies will rebel until they secure a second unelected term.
Secret service would be forced to arrest him.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)tion campaign, voters who were sulking because their candidate didn't get nominated, lies, etc., beat Clinton.
Vote.
Let the complainers 'complain,' we've got the U.S. Army, after all. (NOT suggesting it will be easy or pleasant, but facts are facts.)
pangaia
(24,324 posts)Are you sure about that?
whether or not individuals 'like' it.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)mitch96
(13,895 posts)brush
(53,771 posts)all the better.
Lochloosa
(16,063 posts)TwilightZone
(25,467 posts)Talking about it is a waste of time and pixels. Ain't gonna happen. We really should stop taking the bait.
Igel
(35,300 posts)Concentration camps, black helicopters, etc., etc., because there was no way "war criminal" Bush II was going to leave office.
People ever used the routine "continuation of government" EO as evidence of Bush II's nefarious plot to install himself as dictator for life.
(To be fair, I also caught hints of it in 2016 about Obama from non-DU sources, mirrored in sources that said, "Look at the loons who want to believe Obama won't pack up and leave in the usual way on inauguration day."
For what it's worth, paranoia does a bit of creeping (out) here and there.
Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)pack his sh%t and ship it to NYC.
jmowreader
(50,556 posts)At 12:01 pm January 20, 2021, Trump isnt president anymore. His advisors will have explained to him the optics of having to be dragged out of the White House.
I suspect Trump will resign along with all his minions and flee the country in an attempt to cause chaos. Little does he know Nancy Pelosi would simply pick a VP and call in Obamas cabinet, and wed have a completely functioning government for the first time in four years.
MyMission
(1,850 posts)And claim he wasn't fired, he quit?!? ...for health reasons, the toll election took on him...
A horrible thought, if he does that, steps down in November and pence becomes president for 2+ months, he could get his federal pardon. Won't stop state charges, but many of his crimes could be wiped away. Then again, he wouldn't want pence to succeed him, so maybe he wouldn't resign for that reason.
He's so unpredictable, except we can always expect lies, dishonesty, self-promotion and self-aggrandizement.
We all here (or most) enjoy the visual image of him being escorted or dragged, kicking and screaming and ranting, out of the white house; or removed while in a straight jacket!
And we all just want him out of office, sooner rather than later!
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)And probably shut off the supply of burgers and KFC to the White House. We'll just starve him out.