Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein said a handful of Senate Republicans have told him they fear President Trump’s response to the election results if he loses and believe he may take drastic measures to hold on to the White House.
“I get some of this from Republicans on the Hill who are terribly, terribly concerned about what they regard as the president’s brush with unconstitutional and unthinkable acts to undermine the electoral process,” Bernstein told CNN’s Ana Cabrera on Sunday. “They are very, very worried about it.”
Bernstein, who famously team up with Bob Woodward at the Washington Post to report on the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, added that GOP lawmakers in the upper chamber are also coming together to try and concoct a plan of what to do if Trump gets out of hand.
“There are about six, eight, 10 members of the Senate, Republicans in the Senate, who are talking with each other about how to restrain what they regard as an out-of-control, almost madman … who is determined to do anything to hold on to office regardless of its legality, regardless of how far it crosses lines that are unthinkable in terms of authoritarianism,” Bernstein said, adding that lawmakers say their top member, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is also worried about the aftermath of Tuesday’s election.
“There is real concern because the Republican Party can be held responsible for his actions if they don’t do something about his provocative acts to undermine the Constitution if he goes as far in this scorched earth campaign as they fear he will,” Bernstein said.
“There are about 6,8,10 Republicans in the senate who are talking with each other about how to restrain what they regard as an out-of-control, almost madman…who is determined to do anything to hold on to office regardless of its legality.” @carlbernstein reports pic.twitter.com/WTel7eqTI9
— Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) October 25, 2020
National and state polls have long showed Trump trailing behind his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, even with Election Day just six days away.
Concerns that Trump may refuse to leave office if he loses the election arose after the president declined to commit in September to a peaceful transfer of power if Biden wins. However, Trump clarified that he intends to do just that when asked about the idea again during an NBC town hall, moderated by Today’s Savannah Guthrie.
“They talk about ‘will you accept a peaceful transfer?’ And the answer is, yes, I will, but I want it to be an honest election, and so does everybody else,” Trump said. “When I see thousands of ballots dumped in a garbage can, and they happen to have my name on it, I’m not happy about it.”
Trump has raised concerns for months since the start of the coronavirus pandemic that he believes the election will be rigged due to the mass use of mail-in voting that allows people to avoid having to go to the polls. Critics of his comments note there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud with mail-in ballots about which Trump and his allies have sounded the alarm.
Bernstein’s reports about Republican concerns have also been echoed by his one-time investigative partner, Woodward.
“Are we in a world where there are leaders in the Republican Party? I know some of them privately, very, you know, kind of in the deep whisper, ‘Oh, yeah, we know he’s not the man for the job.’ Are they going to organize? Are they going to see what’s before them?” Woodward said in September.
The White House distanced itself from Woodward after the release of his tell-all book, Rage, which focused on Trump and his presidency. Although he did multiple interviews with Woodward, and those conversations are on tape, Trump dismissed the book, saying it’s full of “lies and phony sources.”
