So much for President Trump. His presidency has been stained beyond recognition. His political future? Sorry, but there no longer is one. Might he settle for a presence in the broadcast media? Perhaps. But Trump faces a huge barrier. He’s now America’s foremost political pariah.
Something happened to Trump when he was confronted with having lost the presidential election to Joe Biden on Nov. 3. It wasn’t what he had expected or at least had hoped for. His response was to proclaim the election had been stolen.
Does Trump truly believe that, or is he just pretending to? There’s a third option: The president has fallen into a dream world. Given the absence of evidence that he received more votes than Biden, a smart politician such as Trump isn’t likely to think he actually did win. Indeed, he’s even less likely to believe he won by a landslide, as he claims.
On the other hand, it’s quite plausible to suspect the president is not telling the truth in the hope of pulling off what Democrats have called a “coup.” But gaining the presidency without prevailing in the Electoral College is bound to be difficult, if not entirely impossible.
However, if Trump was mentally overwrought (or worse) when he became certain he was the legitimate winner of the presidential race, any scheme that gives him a second term in the White House might seem to make sense, even one that brings tens of thousands of supporters to Washington on Jan. 6 and then prompts them to swarm outside and inside the Capitol.
I’m not ready to declare which of the three possible Trump strategies is the real one. And there may be others that I haven’t thought of. But I have a favorite.
If Trump had looked at the election evidence fairly and honestly, he would have noticed plenty of opportunities to accept Biden as the winner. First, there was the election tally itself, which showed Biden ahead by 7 million votes. The media bought that outcome. Trump declined.
A few weeks later, there was the statement by Attorney General William Barr, who had looked into the voting and found irregularities and other problems, but far from enough to have affected the result of the election.
Barr’s conclusion is especially credible because of his close relationship with the president. Trump hand-picked him as AG. And up until Barr’s statement on the election, Trump trusted him. Yet Trump balked at Barr’s view of troubles with the election. Indeed, Trump voiced his displeasure publicly.
One could make the case the president rejected Barr’s notion only because he didn’t like it, not because he doubted it. But what motive would Barr have to lie to Trump? None I can think of.
Next came the effort by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to draw the Supreme Court into the case. Backed by 16 other state AGs, Paxton asserted the actions of four states Trump had lost had harmed Texas. The high court decided, 9-0, that Paxton and Texas lacked “standing” for the justices to intervene in the case. Trump, as expected, disagreed.
On Dec. 14, the Electoral College, the constitutional body for declaring the winner of presidential elections, voted in favor of Biden, 306-232. This wasn’t a surprise, since it was based on the election results. But it did offer Trump a respectable way to drop his refusal to concede the election. He didn’t take it.
Instead, Trump called on followers to gather in Washington on Jan. 6 when the decision of the Electoral College was set to be certified by members of Congress. Summoning his enthusiasts was an unusual step by a president, since the session was merely a formality.
But Trump appears to have had a political gambit in mind. Several slates of Electoral College votes were being challenged by Republican senators. If those slates were disqualified, it could lead to throwing enough states to overturn the Biden victory in the Electoral College. And no telling what that might lead to.
Trump is a desperate man. It appears he’s willing to take wild and crazy steps to hold on to the presidency. But once his gang of MAGA men was unleashed to barge into the Capitol, things got out of hand.
Recall those perfect moments when Trump could have conceded gracefully. Had he, we might be thinking about his presidential prospects in 2024 and who’d be on his team. Now, no one is.
Fred Barnes is a Washington Examiner senior columnist.
