Fox News politics editor Chris Stirewalt said President Trump’s suggestion of postponing November’s election is a sign of “weakness.”
Stirewalt joined America’s Newsroom on Thursday morning shortly after the president asked on social media whether the country should suspend the election “until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”
“On the one hand, of course, you take it neither seriously nor literally. … It’s just flummery. And he’s either trying to provoke a reaction or trying to sow doubt about the outcome. So, on the one hand, it’s whatever. On the other hand, we staged elections during the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was reelected during the Civil War. We staged elections during the Second World War. We’ve staged elections during other pandemics. We have done it all,” Stirewalt said.
Stirewalt said that if Trump were confident in his bid for four more years in the White House, he wouldn’t be seeking to push it back.
“The idea for an incumbent to suggest that we would delay an election now while he is in power is of course totally out of character with all of his predecessors, and it is sort of a fragrant and flagrant expression of his current weakness,” he added. “A person who is in a strong position would never, never suggest anything like that. So, Trump may be making a tactical error here by further telegraphing his weak position in the polls and his weak position for reelection.”
Experts said the president does not have the authority to delay the election. The Constitution grants Congress the power to set the date for elections.
