By Bas van Geffen of Rabobank
As my colleague Mike Every noted in yesterday’s Global Daily, it was anyone’s guess what would happen during the Congressional reading and approval of the Electoral College vote, but that related to the political process. I doubt even the writers for House of Cards would have come up with the events that transpired yesterday.
Ahead of what is supposed to be just a formality, President Trump had still Pencelled in a win, claiming that “Our Vice President has several options under the US Constitution. He can decertify the results or send them back to the states for change and certification. He can also decertify the illegal and corrupt results and send them to the House of Representatives for the one vote for one state tabulation.” And even though Pence had already told Trump that he does not support this interpretation of the Vice President’s constitutional powers and duties, the President still insisted that “if Vice President @Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency […]” while also, again, contesting the validity of the election results.
The President didn’t just stick to Twitter: he also addressed an audience at a Save America rally of pro-Trump protesters in Washington D.C., saying that “we will never take back our country with weakness.” Whether it was his intention or not, that speech may have been the spark for what followed: the demonstrations turned ugly later in the day and a group of protesters breached the US Capitol, where Congress was in the process of debating the certification of the election results. What...