THAT JOKE ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE

This morning, President Trump tweeted this:

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020

We know this was, among other things, an attempt to distract from the dismal GDP report that was announced this morning. But was Trump serious about a possible election postponement?

We're now at the stage where we're being told it was a brilliant joke and the stupid libs were just fished in.

GOP Sen Cornyn tells reporters Trump’s election-delay tweet was a joke “so all you guys in the press, your heads will explode and you'll write about it”

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) July 30, 2020

And from the Gateway Pundit comments:



So was it a joke? Reporters, please ask the president directly the first chance you get. If he's not available, ask his press secretary to confirm or deny that it was a joke.

Remember the last time we were told that the president was just kidding:

President Donald Trump on Tuesday insisted he was serious when he revealed that he had directed his administration to slow coronavirus testing in the United States, shattering the defenses of senior White House aides who argued Trump’s remarks were made in jest.

“I don’t kid. Let me just tell you. Let me make it clear,” Trump told reporters, when pressed on whether his comments at a campaign event Saturday in Tulsa, Okla., were intended as a joke.

We're being assured that Trump can't postpone the election.

Mr. Trump has no authority to unilaterally change the date of the election, which is set by federal law....

Article II of the Constitution empowers Congress to determing the timing of the election. An 1845 federal law fixed the date as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Yes, but that law says,

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the electors of President and Vice-President shall be appointed in each State on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November of the year in which they are to be appointed: ... provided also, When any State shall have held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and shall fail to make a choice on the day aforesaid, then the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such manner as the State shall by law provide.

Which suggests that states can alter their procedures for choosing presidential electors. And this, from the National Constitution Center, is ominous:

Three opinions from the Congressional Research Service explain scenarios about the possible delays in the presidential election process. One report, released [in March], indicates a state under its own laws could postpone the general election date that results in the selection of electors; in the election this year that date is Tuesday, November 3, 2020. At least 45 states have statutes that deal with election day emergencies, the CRS says.

There are several states in which Republicans fully control the government but voters might prefer Joe Biden to Donald Trump -- Florida, Arizona, and possibly Georgia and Texas. There are other possible Biden states in which Republicans control the legislature -- Pennsylvia, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin. What might happen in those states?

And are we sure the Republicans won't just violate the law with impunity?

Secretary of State Pompeo this morning, in response to Senator Tim Kaine, on whether a President can delay a Presidential election:
"In the end, the Department of Justice and others will make that legal determination."

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) July 30, 2020

I've never believed that Donald Trump would refrain from tampering with the 2020 election because he respects the law or cares about democracy. I assumed he wouldn't do it because he's persuaded himself that he's winning.

I think he still tells himself that he's winning. But it's clear from today's tweet that on some level he doesn't believe it. Now I think he's telling himself that he would win if it weren't for those millions of fraudulent Demoratic mail-in votes (and he's trailing in the polls because every pollster is conspiring against him).

Maybe the election will go on as planned. Maybe Trump and Senate Republicans will merely cripple the Postal Service's ability to handle mail-in ballots. But I don't consider this a joke.