In part due to President Donald Trump’s own handling of the subject, many Americans have expressed fears that if he soundly loses the 2020 election, he won’t leave the office willingly.
If that happens, Pete Buttigieg has a plan: He’ll put Trump to work ― doing chores around the White House.
During a town hall in Reno, Nevada, in advance of the state’s Saturday caucuses, the Democratic presidential candidate was asked what he would do if he beat Trump in November and the president insisted the results were a hoax and he refused to step down.
Buttigieg’s initial response: “I guess if he’s willing to do chores, I guess we could work something out.”
He then explained that Americans who didn’t want Trump to have a second term had a duty to vote in November.
“I think we want to set a goal of winning big enough that this election is way beyond cheating distance, and that Trumpism goes into the history books too,” he said. “It’s got to be a win so big that Senate Republicans are reunited with their consciences, and only a political shockwave can do that.”
You can see the exchange here:
Trump, seemingly in jest, has more than once broached the prospect of blowing off the two-term limit for presidents that was officially added to the Constitution through the 22nd amendment in 1951. In a Twitter post last June, he rhetorically wondered whether “the people would demand that I stay longer?”
In the wake of China’s Xi Jinping having been given the opportunity to serve as “president for life,” Trump’s suggested that such a move isn’t a bad idea, according to The Week.
The president’s banter on the issue has become no joking matter for other politicians.
Last May, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) admitted she worried that Trump would not leave the White House willingly in 2020, regardless of the election’s results.
In June, Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld told HBO talk show host Bill Maher he doubted Trump would willingly cede the Oval Office if he loses in November.
“He’ll have a run at saying, ‘It was a rigged game so I’m not leaving,’” Weld said. He added that didn’t think “the military and indeed even the Justice Department — the rank-and-file, the investigative agencies — would stand for that in this country.”
Maher himself held forth on the concern late last month. “So my question to all Democratic candidates is, what’s the plan?” he said. “If you win and the next day he claims he’s voiding the election because of irregularities he’s hearing about, what do you do?”
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