The November election feels too far away, so I’m not having an anxiety attack over it right now. Catch me in September, then we’ll see. A lot can change in five months. A lot will change in five months. But there’s one thing all of us can guarantee right now: Donald Trump and his minions will try to f–k up the election somehow. Even after the election, Trump and his people will do the most to delegitimize the results, I know that. But what if Trump and his people are already thinking about “cancelling” the election? Jared Kushner took part in a Time 100 interview, and he suggested that voting in November isn’t a for-sure done deal.
Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, refused on Tuesday to rule out postponing the presidential election in November, a comment that fed directly into Democratic concerns that President Trump might use the coronavirus crisis to delay or delegitimize the contest and one that contradicted Mr. Trump himself.
“I’m not sure I can commit one way or the other, but right now that’s the plan,” Mr. Kushner told Time magazine in response to a question about whether the election could be postponed because of the pandemic.
The opinion of a White House staff member has no bearing on when the election is held. Even the president himself does not have the authority to unilaterally postpone Election Day, which by law takes place the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. But Mr. Kushner’s comment raised alarms both because of the expansive power Mr. Trump has conferred on members of his family who serve in his administration and because it played into the worst anxieties of Mr. Trump’s detractors — that the president would begin to question the validity of the election if he feared he was going to lose.
The presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., gave voice to those concerns at a virtual fund-raiser last month. “Mark my words, I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow — come up with some rationale why it can’t be held,” he said.
[From The NY Times]
“I’m not sure I can commit one way or the other…” Like it’s up to him. Like he thinks “running the election” is one of his many tasks, alongside “Middle East peacemaker,” Secretary of State, Middle East envoy, counsellor to Israel, campaign manager for the Trump campaign, shadow coronavirus task force chief, tax policy expert, labor expert and domestic policy legislator. Now he’s a Constitutional expert who knows that the president’s son-in-law could cancel a federal election.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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