What would happen if Trump refused to leave office after 2020 election loss?

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https://www-independent-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-impeachment-refuse-leave-office-nixon-cohen-white-house-a8814991.html?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&amp&usqp=mq331AQA#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Famericas%2Fus-politics%2Ftrump-impeachment-refuse-leave-office-nixon-cohen-white-house-a8814991.html

Roughly seven hours into his congressional testimony in March, Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen delivered a grave warning for the future of American democracy if the president does not get his way in the 2020 election.

While many during the Trump presidency have wondered if he might be impeached and removed from office during his first term, Cohen had a different concern. Like a rude house guest with the nuclear codes at his disposal, Cohen worried that the celebrity businessman-turned-president may just refuse to let go of the keys to the White House, even if he is not re-elected.

“Given my experience working for Mr Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 there will never be a peaceful transition of power,” Cohen said.

The remarks received about as much reaction from the room as a later Saturday Night Live parody of Cohen’s testimony in which he called Mr Trump racist. Which is to say, basically none.

But, it is a sentiment shared by the likes of House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who told The New York Times last week that she is preparing for just that situation.

“We have to inoculate against that, we have to be prepared for that,” Ms Pelosi said.

While Cohen’s concerns were largely disregarded, it was notable that Cohen should raise the question of what happens if the president of the United States refuses to leave office after losing an election. Could such a thing ever come to pass?

Experts interviewed on the possibility for this article said there is no real playbook for the scenario. Like, perhaps, the Trump administration itself, the United States would be in uncharted territory.

On previous occasions in the history of the United States, when the presidency was in any way contested, cooler heads have prevailed in the interest of the peaceful transfer of power.

Richard Nixon conceded to John F Kennedy in 1960 amid several accusations of vote rigging for the Democrat, for instance. Vice president Al Gore accepted the Supreme Court’s ruling that George Bush had won the 2000 presidential election even though there were significant questions about the integrity of the results in Florida.

Paul Quirk, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia, says he has not given the issue a great deal of thought because it is such an outlier, but that the most likely moment of dispute would come between election day in November and January, when presidents are sworn in.

“If Trump decided that the election was illegitimate, and he was going to resist actually leaving office, he would – I don’t know whether he would try to arrest his opponent and stop them from appearing to take over the office, or whether he would just say on January 21, ‘I’m not leaving’,” Mr Quirk says.

“At some point, the question would become: whose orders do law enforcement obey? Because it would ultimately become a matter of the use of force in one direction or another.”

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The US constitution makes no mention of how a president should be removed if they lose an election and refuse to hand over power to their opponent. So, it is hard to say if anyone would have the appetite to send the FBI, or navy seals, or whatever law enforcement agency, storming into the West Wing to arrest a recently defeated Donald Trump.

Joshua Sandman, a professor of political science at the University of New Haven, says he does not think Mr Trump would ever refuse to leave office after an election because it would destroy the president’s legacy.

Still, he suggests – like other experts quoted here – intense congressional and political pressure would force Mr Trump out of office quickly.

“The first line of defence would be the congress, and his party pressuring him out, telling him he must resign or leave,” Mr Sandman says. “If he wants to stay in the White House, he would stay in the White House. But, again, hypothetically you don’t need that. The White House is symbolic. It’s not a seat of power, necessarily.”

He adds: “All of these are, it’s sort of a work of science fiction. It’s all hypothetical.”

Michael Cohen: ‘I fear that if Trump loses the election in 2020 there will never be a peaceful transition of power’
Contrary to Michael Cohen’s doom-laden warning – and similar claims by the president’s former fixer, Roger Stone – the experts interviewed by The Independent say they doubted any mass uprising would actually occur if Mr Trump was to lose the 2020 election or if his presidency was terminated in congress after impeachment. As with the 2000 election, a Supreme Court decision in favour of his opponent would settle the matter.

While the president’s base of around 30 per cent of the population may be committed to him, that does not mean they would necessarily take action to keep him in office if he lost at the polls. Certainly there is no expectation that a broad swathe of the American populace would rise up to riot for a continued Trump presidency should he lose.

Ross Baker, an American political expert at Rutgers University in New Jersey, says the most challenging situation would arise if Mr Trump lost re-election by a very narrow margin.

He imagined a scenario where the popular vote was won by less than 1 per cent nationwide, and where there was a near tie in the electoral college. On 4 November 2020, America could wake up to tweets from the president calling the previous day’s results a fraud, and saying there is no way he did not win by huge margins. Meanwhile, Fox News would be welcoming pundit after pundit toeing that presidential line.

Should that happen, Mr Baker can imagine a scenario in which the House of Representatives gets to decide the electoral college based upon each state’s delegation – which may or may not line up with the popular vote.

But that does not resolve who would win or who would be the legitimate president of the United States.

“It would certainly be a constitutional crisis to the first magnitude,” Mr Baker says.

How to defeat trump is NOT by presenting spreadsheets!!!

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Impeachment inquiry?

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Hii ni mbullcheet , mzito DJ Trump is a gentleman who respects the rule of law

An implausible idea. Not in the USA. People need to stop wasting energy on such speculation and concentrate on ejecting the buffoon.

Democrats are simply deluded goats. Mtangoja sana. Instead of focusing on convincing voters they are focusing on sideshows

The real question is, what will happen if Donald Trump defeats the Democrats again, will they accept the defeat or start whining again for the next four years about how their victory was stolen?

Will they start another witch hunt followed by the most insane demands ever heard in history e.g. the A.G should publish the whole report on ongoing secret investigations?

They have given instances to demonstrate that it has happened before before in America. Yaani elections have been stolen before. Or, at least, some results have been contested. Na sio kila siku watabahatisha with their “love for the country” forever. Especially if the one refusing to leave the presidency is not just a buffoon like Donald Trump, but Donald Trump himself, the racist champion!

Spot on mzito Trump hii kitu by saa tatu atakuwa ndaaaaaaniiiiiii kabisa. Devilcrat should know tuko in post modernism people want to be told ukweli. Si hii uongo Yao. American under Trump has been more peaceful. He talks what is in sober American mind.

I suspect the media doesn’t want this guy out. He’s great for the business.

The guy will be re-elected saa mbili asubuhi Eastern Time.The rest of the world perceives his as a disgrace but he resonates with the average American voter. Building the wall, kicking out immigrants, being hard on China and Iran are what the kawaida American wants but can’t say it loudly. The democrats have taken a dangerous path of attraction hardline minorities which alienates the Caucasian voters who are 70%.

Hii ni upus umeandika. US si Uganda

whites have never had a black man thinking leave alone imagination.

Points to ponder:

  1. Hilary Clinton was an undesirable candidate in 2016, but she took the majority.

  2. The non-Hispanic white population is on the decline.

the new numbers show that for the first time there are more children who are minorities than who are white, at every age from zero to nine. This means we are on the cusp of seeing the first minority white generation, born in 2007 and later, which perhaps we can dub Generation “Z-Plus.”

[I] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/06/21/us-white-population-declines-and-generation-z-plus-is-minority-white-census-shows/

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Why should anyone take your insinuations about Trump seriously…wasn’t 2016 a sure bet for Hillary even after we tried schooling your dim a$$? Next it was about how Mueller would be his downfall, we also the grand fail that turned out to be, bla bla. Trump is winning 2020. And popular vote is as good as shots on goal yet you lost the match, useless stats.

US ain’t Ivory coast or Burundi where the presidents wanainulia wananchi manyoya. Huko ata billionaires huenda jela.

All those factors are superficial. Nobody cares. That’s low hanging fruit that’s media driven. Created by Trump. The younger generation thinks of student debt and employment opportunities when they get out of high school/ college. More younger people are staying at home. And for longer periods. The older generation thinks mainly about healthcare costs. Out of pocket expenses. Which are ballooning. One term President.

Look at the approval ratings from Gallup then come and yap here that nobody cares, media driven bla bla. Actually he has the highest rating ever among the Grand Old Party yet Democrats don’t have a candidate plus the fallout that usually ensues the primaries.[ATTACH=full]251060[/ATTACH]

His approval rating is at 44% according to Gallup. Amongst the lowest ever among Presidents.

Now they have already won and their biggest worry is that trump will deny them their victory, in short they have decided their victory has already been stolen before the election is held. setting stage for chaos to take power through backdoor because they know they simply can’t win

Yea right…

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