Donald Trump is showing little sign he’s ready to hand Joe Biden the reins of power. Days after the election results were clear, a Washington power grab and a blizzard of lawsuits underlines what many suspected would be a worst-case scenario: a rejected US president refusing to go quietly.
But does Trump’s intransigence matter?
Declining to concede the election to president-elect Biden is not a good look for America, particularly when it’s a country that sees itself as a beacon of democracy and lectures the rest of world on peaceful changes of power. But the election result is highly unlikely to be overturned, and Biden will be sworn on January 20. But between now and then, plenty could happen.
The election result won’t change
In Britain, election results lead to an immediate change of government. In America, the presidential handover is staggered as as the results of the Electoral College vote is ratified. Tradition dictates that Trump would be in the Oval Office during the period, with his hands on the levers of power, while there is a gradual transition to the Biden administration.
Many of the protocols are continuing despite Trump digging in, including world leaders congratulating Biden and looking to their future relations with the US. On Wednesday, Boris Johnson welcomed a “refreshing” conversation with Biden as the UK prime minister labelled Trump the “previous president”.
“In theory it should not really matter,” Professor Natasha Lindstaedt, from the department of government at the University of Essex, told HuffPost UK.
“Every election official from every state has confirmed that there has not been any evidence of voter fraud. Even if vote counts take place, they will not change the outcome because the margin of victory is too large in too many states. All of the major news outlets have called it, including Fox, and a handful of past Republican leaders and a few Republican lawmakers have acknowledged that it’s over.”
Lindstaedt suggests much of the noise will peter out as the Republicans focus on Georgia’s run-off elections, which will determine which party gets control of the Senate: “I believe that they are playing lip service to Trump at the moment because they think he may remain a powerful force in US politics.
“My assumption is that once all of the votes are counted and the legal manoeuvres have been exhausted, they will never congratulate Biden but won’t keep barking on about the election being stolen. Republicans need to move quickly to focus on Georgia.”
What is Trump doing?
Trump’s campaign is pushing ahead with its long-shot litigation strategy to try to upend Biden’s victory by filing lawsuits in battleground election states, the most recent being Michigan – part of the re-built “Blue Wall” that Biden won handily. Prominent Republican lawmakers and other Trump allies have backed the president’s plan, saying he has the right to contest the election results.
In Twitter posts on Wednesday, Trump kept up his false narrative of voter fraud, referring to “a mountain of corruption & dishonesty” while also assailing pollsters. “We win!,” Trump wrote.
But his chances of changing the outcome are, to put it charitably, modest. Judges have thrown out several of the Trump lawsuits, and legal experts say the litigation has scant chance of changing the election outcome.
Perhaps more worrying is how Trump is harnessing the power of the federal government to resist the results in a way no other sitting president has attempted. Trump has installed loyalists in top positions at the Pentagon this week, after firing defence secretary Mark Esper, which could potentially make it easier to use US troops to respond to potential domestic protests. Allies expect more to come, including the possible dismissals of the directors of the FBI and the CIA.
Trump’s attorney general has at the same time authorised investigations into supposed vote fraud, his general services administrator has refused to give Biden’s team access to transition offices and resources guaranteed under law and the White House is preparing a budget for next year as if Trump will be around to present it. Most striking was US secretary of state Mike Pompeo alluding to a “second Trump administration”, a comment all the more disconcerting since his role is to be America’s face to the wider world, and not act as if he is a party operative.
Lindstaedt, whose main area of study is dictatorships, points to Esper being fired because he did not agree with Trump by placing federal troops on the streets to target protesters. She said: “These sort of stand-offs happen frequently in authoritarian regimes that decide to hold moderately free and fair elections, such as more recently in the Gambia and the Ivory Coast.
“This set up reminds me of Libya after Gaddafi when there was a government that was elected in 2012 located in Tripoli, and another elected government that was located in Tobruk after the former refused to adhere to the results of the 2014 elections. This is a protracted crisis that continues to this day.”
How does it impact Biden’s transition?
The Trump administration is not cooperating with Biden’s team, which has been unable to move into federal government office space or access funds to hire staff – a routine part of a typical presidential handover.
Biden has called Trump’s failure to concede an “embarrassment” and continued to lay the foundations for his incoming administration. He has tapped finance, trade and banking regulation experts for his transition team who range from mainstream Democrats to progressive activists. “We’re going to be going, moving along, in a consistent manner, putting together our administration, the White House, and reviewing who we’re going to pick for the Cabinet positions, and nothing’s going to stop that,” Biden said on Tuesday.
But there is only so much Biden’s team can do and there are important real-world implications for a delayed transition. The contested 2000 election, in which George W Bush was eventually declared the winner over Al Gore, slowed the process of the Bush administration getting their national security team in place. The delay may have contributed to the failure to stop the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, as the 9/11 Commission Report noted: ”[T]he 36-day delay cut in half the normal transition period. Given that a presidential election in the United States brings wholesale change in personnel, this loss of time hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing, and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees.”
Could Trump be physically removed from office?
If Trump continues to be a “squatter” in the White House, then what?
General Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chief of staffs and the country’s top military officer, has said the armed forces would not get involved in the transfer of power. Biden has disagreed, predicting in June the military may intervene should Trump refuse to leave office. He told Daily Show host Trevor Noah: “I promise you, I am absolutely convinced they will escort him from the White House with great dispatch.”
While Lindstaedt doesn’t think the US will face anything close to a Libya-like scenario, there could be a delay to Biden taking the helm. She said: “It is hard to predict who will forcefully remove him when the secretary of state and attorney general are on board with Trump’s false statements about the elections.”
Is Trump stoking his supporters?
Nearly 80% of Americans, including half of Republicans, say Biden is the rightful winner of the election, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday. But that suggests one-in-five do not see Biden as the winner, and it is this “base” Trump may be trying to stoke.
Lindstaedt said: “All of these stalling tactics play into his supporters beliefs that the election was stolen from them, further fuelling their anger at the other side.
“This undemocratic behaviour by Trump shatters our norms and could have long lasting effects if future Republicans – or Democrats – decide to not concede and cry fowl in the face of no evidence.
“It is the speech by the person giving a concession that is critical to a peaceful transfer of power to communicate to supporters that the loss was legitimate and that it is time to move forward.”