Joe Biden says Trump will have to be “escorted from the White House” if he’s not re-elected
One of the increasing worries about November’s US Presidential election is that Trump might not willingly leave the White House if he fails to get re-elected.
The Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, Joe Biden, is already starting to talk publicly about this concern which has been raised by many others – see the interview with Trevor Noah linked to above.
The timing is interesting. The election takes place on November 2nd but the winner will have to wait until the inauguration on January 20th when, if Trump has lost, he will cease to be President. But what happen if he refuses to stand aside? You can hear him saying “the election was rigged”.
This could be taking the US and the world into very dangerous territory.
From the inauguration on that date Joe Biden, if as the polls are currently suggesting, has won will become Commander in Chief. Until that moment Trump would have all the power of the office.
The situation could be more likely to happen if Trump loses by a narrow margin. Remember that in 2016 Trump was 2 million votes short of Clinton’s total but he became President because of the Electoral College.
My guess is that leaders of America’s allies, like Johnson, could possibly have role to play in such a scenario saying publicly that they won’t recognise Trump as President beyond January 20th.