It was six months ago when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters, “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the [2020] presidential election.” During a brief Q&A in front of the White House, the House GOP leader added, “I think that is all over with.”
The California Republican’s comments came to mind yesterday reading Donald Trump’s latest written statement about his defeat from last year:
“Whatever happened to the Rigged and Stolen Arizona Presidential Election that is being investigated, or maybe the words should properly be ‘looked at,’ by Attorney General Mark Brnovich? When will the legislature vote to decertify? People are very upset in Arizona that it is all taking so long, especially when the findings of the State Senate’s Forensic Audit were so conclusive, not even including the recent revelation of 35,000 fictitious votes in Pima County, and precincts with over 100 percent turnout (how do you like that one?). The people of Arizona are anxiously awaiting the decision of the Attorney General. They know what really went on during that Election!”
Obviously, the sheer volume of nonsense over the course of the former president’s 109-word statement is amazing. In reality, for example, the election was neither “rigged” nor “stolen.” The Arizona state Senate’s sham “audit” was an absurd fiasco that actually made things worse for Trump and his party. The idea that there were 35,000 “fictitious votes” in Pima County is a ridiculous claim that has already been examined and discredited.
But the part of the Republican’s weird written rant was the question packed amidst the nonsense: “When will the legislature vote to decertify?“
In case anyone’s forgotten, there has never been any reason to question the election results out of Arizona. There was an official count of the state’s ballots, followed by an official recount. There was an independent audit, which found literally nothing untoward. Then there was a not-at-all-independent audit, which backfired on the GOP.
The facts are unambiguous: President Joe Biden narrowly defeated Trump in the Grand Canyon State 12 months ago.
It was against this backdrop that the Republican insisted in September, “Arizona must immediately decertify their 2020 Presidential Election Results.” Two months later, he’s still pushing the idea.
Trump also recently wrote to Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, urging him to “start the process of decertifying the 2020 Election.”
Just so we’re all clear, the former president realizes that election officials in every state certified their results a year ago. He nevertheless is under the impression that if he begs enough, conspiracy-minded Republicans in states like Arizona and Georgia will undo the certification process — not because of new evidence, but because he says so.
If states follow his demands, then … well, it’s not altogether clear what he expects to happen at that point. Trump has spent part of the year telling people he could still be “reinstated” to the White House. Politico reported over the summer that he even managed to convinced himself that Arizona’s sham “audit” could trigger “some sort of legal process” that would make him president again.
This is utterly bonkers — and according to the Department of Homeland Security, potentially dangerous — but the problem clearly isn’t improving as Election Day 2020 gets further away.
