One of the innate strengths of the presidency is the harassing pulpit it provides – the opportunity to make virtually any setting and turn it into a stage to showcase the great impact of the office.
On Wednesday, this setting was a cell phone placed on a speaker, placed near a microphone, spread out on a table in a conference room at a Wyndham hotel in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, over which Donald Trump repeated the long list. wild conspiracy theories about why he won the 2020 election when he didn’t.
“We need to reverse the election,” the president declared, saying the quiet part aloud. “We cannot let this happen to our country. And these elections need to be reversed because we have won a lot in Pennsylvania and we have won a lot in all these swing states. “
While there may have been a nuance of struggle in his voice, there are glorious times for the president, who has embraced the very bunker existence he spent months living Joe Biden. Trump hasn’t asked questions in weeks. He barely appeared in public. When he had it, it sounded so short and strange that it raised questions about the essence of it all. He claims to be fighting for the future of democracy. But the most tangible activity he engaged in was golf.
“Trump wants this to continue,” a senior administrative official said, describing why he is wasting resources on this campaign, the Republican National Commission and the government. “[Basically] everyone should be forged. “
And on Wednesday they did it for a brief moment. At the beginning of the day, plans emerged in the West Wing for Trump to travel to Pennsylvania in person to address what has been accused of “negotiating” the State Senate for election security and allegations of voting fraud. Giving a fine point, it became his Gettysburg, well, Gettysburg.
But he and his advisers suddenly confused these plans on Wednesday. Instead, he literally called in, leaving attorneys Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani to appear.
The event was held a day after Pennsylvania confirmed that elected Democratic President Joe Biden had won the state, presented as a “public hearing” on the Trump team’s baseless allegations of massive “irregularities” and “frauds” that tore Pennsylvania into Biden. . By the time Trump called, several “witnesses” offered hearings, personal anecdotes, and context-free data to show what they considered a huge effort to spread hundreds of thousands of votes to Biden. Turning to the crowd on Ellis’ intercepted cell phone, the president cheered them up and added his own thoughts about a fictitious universe in which he was the winner.
At one point, it turned out that someone else was trying to reach Ellis over the phone – the subtleties of incoming calls interrupt the president’s monologue. Ellis didn’t give in to the temptation to check who was on the other line. The caller went to voicemail, which was another victim of the post-election season.
Trump himself didn’t seem to notice. In his ready-to-talk conversations with Fox News, he spoke of “if you were a Republican pollster, you were treated like a dog” and rejoiced at Giuliani’s every effort to prevent the inevitable Biden inauguration in January:
“This will be your coronation,” Trump said, “because you will save our country.”
He hid his face behind a mask with the inscription “You’re not alone,” Giuliani sat at the table, fiddling with the papers and the manilla folder in front of him. There was no dye dripping on his face this time. There is no sweat on his forehead to wipe it off. His body language seemed to a man as if he had really lifted the atta boys he had received from the president and the crowd.
And yet he must have imagined that life would have given him a different scenario; that he spends the day before Thanksgiving literally anywhere else than a hotel conference room, mostly with unmasked conspirators and a number of anonymous state lawmakers who seemed delighted to hear the president over his cell phone.
In a sense, this is an appropriate chapter for his marriage to Trump, which was perpetrated by years of scandals, scandals, and politically powerful acts.
According to several sources with direct knowledge, Trump’s close advisers have over the years tried to persuade Giuliani, who was seen as a nuisance and a scandal magnet. This was done by the Mueller investigation, the Michael Cohen fiasco, the Ukrainian saga (during which Giuliani’s actions triggered a series of events that led directly to Trump’s acquittal), and the 2020 presidential election (during which Trump-approved plan for the Biden campaign sketchy Hunter with Biden contamination definitely didn’t work).
And they are doing so now as several key players in Trumpworld’s leadership, including Bill Stepien’s 2020 campaign manager, have sought a distance from the approach that Giuliani’s offer to withdraw is anything and everything that fits the wall of the vote. Several of Trump’s confidants told the president he looked like an idiot because of his legal “strike power,” say two people who know the conversations.
But he still insists on Rudy, while each egg defies the other’s reality, destroying democracy. They don’t seem to be able to hurt each other now because where else could they go?
The former New York mayor’s reputation has been irrevocably altered by events over the past four years: former staff have been looking for distance, and former amplifiers have said they no longer recognize the once respected man. According to two sources familiar with the case, Giuliani has already told the president that when Trump resigns, he will remain loyal to him, both as a lawyer and as a friend.
As for Trump, there are simply few people he thinks he can turn to in times of peril – which, of course, won’t end if he finally leaves 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Law enforcement and investigators, especially in New York, are actively digging into the realm of family business. And this month, as he began to sink in that Biden could soon occupy the Oval Office, Trump made it clear to his confidants that he feared prosecutors were potentially waiting for him on the other side, two people familiar with his private notes say.
– Are they trying to fuck me? the president has asked in recent months, according to another source who knows his question directly.
