The operating “assumption” at the White House is that Donald Trump is heading into his second term, his trade adviser Peter Navarro said Friday, despite all the facts to the contrary.
Clearly others in the administration agree, including secretary of state Mike Pompeo and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who said she expects Trump to attend “his own inauguration” in January.
“We are moving forward here at the White House under the assumption that there will be a second Trump term,” Navarro said on Fox Business.
Trump has refused to concede the race that has been declared for president-elect Joe Biden, and is challenging the results in court, with no success to date.
Navarro revealed the working assumption while responding to a question about what trade actions Biden might take as president.
“Our assumption is a second Trump term,” Navarro repeated. “Any speculation about what Joe Biden might do” in office “is moot at this point,” he added.
“We think he won that election,” said Navarro.
Navarro has long unabashedly supported Trump in public, often blurring the lines between his official White House job and his role as a Trump campaign surrogate — even though plugging the president’s reelection on the taxpayers’ dime is a violation of the Hatch Act.
Watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has called for Navarro to be fired for his “egregious, notorious, and ongoing” violations of the Hatch Act.
“Navarro’s repeated disregard for the law warrants his removal from federal service,” CREW wrote in a letter last month to the Special Counsel’s Office after Navarro brazenly admitted on Fox that he had worked for Trump’s campaign. “Anything less than that reaffirms this administration’s complicity in allowing senior officials to act as if they are above the law.”