{"id":2679,"date":"2020-12-02T16:44:17","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T16:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/?p=2679"},"modified":"2020-12-02T16:44:17","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T16:44:17","slug":"spinning-the-false-argument-that-the-election-was-stolen-by-biden-trump-allows-the-transition-but-maintains-that-hes-not-a-loser-because-the-election-was-stolen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/2020\/12\/02\/spinning-the-false-argument-that-the-election-was-stolen-by-biden-trump-allows-the-transition-but-maintains-that-hes-not-a-loser-because-the-election-was-stolen\/","title":{"rendered":"“Spinning the false argument that the election was stolen by Biden, Trump allows the transition but maintains that he\u2019s not a loser, because the election was stolen.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Andrew Wroe, Senior Lecturer in American Politics and author of The Ordinary Presidency of Donald J. Trump<\/a>. <\/i>commented on President Trump finally conceding to President Elect Biden on BBC Radio Kent, 24.11.20<\/a>, providing some interesting insight into Trump’s character as well as the behind the scenes practicalities of he handover of the administration between now and Biden’s inaugeration in January 2021. What follows is a transcript.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dr Andrew Wroe is from the University of Kent\u2019s School of Politics and International Relations and is on the line to us now. Andrew, afternoon to you. How significant is this acceptance by Donald Trump that a formal transition of power can now begin?<\/em>
\nOh I think it\u2019s hugely significant. It releases a big tranche of money \u2013 roughly about 7 million dollars \u2013 for the Biden campaign to start to subsidise their office space, it will actually provide some federal office space as well, and it\u2019ll give President Biden \u2013 or sorry, President Elect Biden \u2013 access to security briefings . I think that\u2019s something that was really worrying Republicans up on Capitol Hill, especially Senate Republicans, that as they try and brand themselves as the party of security that promotes America\u2019s national interest it didn\u2019t look very good for this president \u2013 the current president \u2013 not allowing the incoming president access to those really important security briefings. It\u2019ll also give Biden and his team access to the rest of the federal bureaucracy, they can send their people in there and can start to liaise with Trump\u2019s people. Trump\u2019s people have been compiling what are called transition binders where they identify the problems and the issues that the Biden people will have to deal with when they hit the ground running. It\u2019s really the transition that decides the point. The transition\u2019s really about the Biden administration coming in and hitting the ground running on January 20 2021.<\/p>\n

Although it ought to be pointed out, President Trump stopped short of conceding defeat, didn\u2019t he?<\/em>
\nHe did. I don\u2019t think he will concede. It\u2019s just not in his nature. In fact he said in a tweet, I think it was this morning or last night, that \u2018Our case continues strongly\u2019, they\u2019re going to continue to push the argument in the courts, and in the court of public opinion as well, that this election has been stolen. And I think it\u2019s really important for Trump\u2019s own mental health in a way that he doesn\u2019t concede, because his whole persona is built around being a winner rather than a loser, and if he concedes he\u2019s officially saying to the world \u2018I lost\u2019. By not conceding, and spinning this simply false argument that the election was stolen by Biden, he allows the transition but he maintains that he\u2019s not a loser, and he\u2019s not a loser because the election was stolen.<\/p>\n

And in a tweet Mr Trump said he still believed he\u2019d prevail in his legal fight to overturn the election result. How likely is that in reality?<\/em>
\nAlmost zero. There\u2019s been over a dozen efforts in the courts and various states to turn this around and not a single case has succeeded, they\u2019ve been thrown out at every point, basically because the courts require empirical evidence and the Trump lawyers have not been able to provide any evidence that the election has been stolen by the Democrats, that there\u2019s been a huge fraud by the Democrats and the Biden team. I mean, there isn\u2019t simply any evidence, and that\u2019s why the courts have given his legal efforts very short shrift. There was an absolutely excoriating opinion over the weekend from a judge in Pennsylvania where he described Giuliani and the other Trump lawyers\u2019 efforts like a Frankenstein\u2019s monster, this sort of stitched together ridiculous effort to persuade the Pennsylvania judge to throw out 7 million legal votes because they\u2019d identified a couple which were slightly dodgy. The judge just sort of threw it out in this really brutal opinion, and I think that really deflated the Trump campaign and the Trump lawyers. It wasn\u2019t the end, it\u2019s not the end of the story, I think they\u2019ll sort of go through the motions, but that opinion on Saturday was just brutal for them.<\/p>\n

And Donald Trump has been unusually quiet these past few days, so \u2013 is he simply keeping his head down, do you think?<\/em>
\nHe\u2019s still tweeting, that hasn\u2019t stopped. He\u2019s doing a lot of golfing these days. But what I\u2019ve been reading is that he\u2019s angry about what\u2019s happened, he\u2019s venting, he\u2019s blaming others, including supporters, like Fox News. He\u2019s looking around for scapegoats. But going back to this point I made earlier about him having an image of a winner, it\u2019s really hard for him to hold his head up now and say that. I think he is hiding because he has lost and he can\u2019t really deal very well with loss.<\/p>\n

So what happens now during this transition period? What\u2019s going on behind the scenes, Andrew?<\/em>
\nWell, as we said, the Biden team will start to get access to the resources of the Federal Government. They\u2019ll start to get security briefings and so on, but procedurally there are still a couple of steps that have to \u2013 or hoops they have to jump through before Biden becomes President. So each of the individual states is in a process of certifying the election results in their state, and different states do that at different times. Michigan did that yesterday, for example, and, you know, this will go on for the next week or so. Then the next big step is December 14 and \u2013 we talk about the Electoral College, you know, there\u2019s 538 Electoral College votes. Well each of those votes is actually represented by a real person, and so those real people will actually formally cast their vote in favour of one candidate or the other on 14 December. And that\u2019s what Trump was trying to upset \u2013 what he was trying to do was get the state legislatures to overturn the Electoral College, give their Electoral College votes directly to him, so by-pass that process, and that seems to have failed as well. So for 14 December the Electoral College voters will come together and they will cast their votes for Trump or Biden, and we know that those votes are going to go for Biden in the main, it\u2019ll be a healthy victory. But there\u2019s another formal step after that, 6 January. Those Electoral College votes are transmitted to Congress in Washington and Congress formally counts the votes, and then two weeks later, on 20 January, Mr Biden will be sworn in as the President of the United States.<\/p>\n

Dr Andrew Wroe<\/a> is\u00a0a Senior lecturer in American politics.\u00a0His current research interest is the presidency of Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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