A Complete Analysis Of Trump’s 204th Unpresidented Week As POTUS

In spite of the indisputable fact Biden won the election, Trump is surrounding himself with authoritarians and suggesting a military coup.

by: Ahmed Baba on December 20, 2020

Sidney Powell (C-SPAN), Donald Trump (AP), Michael Flynn (Newsmax).

Trump’s first major typo after winning the election was spelling Unprecedented incorrectly. He infamously tweeted “Unpresidented.” This typo is emblematic of his administration: An impulsive, frantically thrown together group of characters with virtually no oversight. After Trump was sworn in, I started writing the weekly “Unpresidented” column, analyzing every week of his presidency. This is week 204.

There is no other way to frame this than to call it the contemplation of an attempted military coup. The losing President is reportedly spending his time holding meetings with conspiracy theorists and musing about the dubious idea of declaring martial law, seizing voting machines, and re-doing the election. Donald Trump is going out on the lowest dictatorial note possible.

On Monday, the electoral college further affirmed President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ win. By Friday, President Trump was weighing wildly authoritarian power grabs. The New York Times reported that President Trump met with his disgraced, pardoned former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and conspiracy theorist lawyer Sidney Powell at the White House. Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani also phoned in to the meeting. In the meeting, Trump reportedly mused about Flynn’s Newsmax suggestion that he declare martial law and seize voting machines. Trump also broached the idea of making Sidney Powell a White House special counsel to probe the election.

Trump called the story fake news, but his credibility is non-existent. Jonathan Allen of Axios corroborated the reporting and expanded upon its significance in a tweet: “I’ve been covering Donald Trump for a while. I can’t recall hearing more intense concern from senior officials who are actually Trump people. The Sidney Powell / Michael Flynn ideas are finding an enthusiastic audience at the top.”

Of course, Trump does not have the authority to do what he’s proposing, and even if he tried, he does not have the support of the military to pull this off. But regardless of its dubiousness, the fact the President of the United States is seriously considering a military coup should startle everyone. In the future, when an authoritarian lunatic tells you he’s an authoritarian lunatic, believe him and don’t elect him. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only coup Trump mused about this week.

Rather than accept defeat, President Trump has openly endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks’ (R-AL) effort to challenge Biden electors on January 6. Of course, it will fail. Even if one House member and one Senator mount a challenge, a majority of each chamber won’t overturn the results. The result will be floor speeches and a lot of noise on January 6, and nothing more. I gamed this out in my article in The Independent. President Trump is the biggest repeated loser in presidential history, and his Republican colleagues are still deciding to latch onto him.

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This week, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) held a disgraceful hearing. Watching Johnson, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), and other GOP Senators spread voter fraud lies was disgraceful. They were talking about how their base is losing faith in elections as if their lies aren’t the primary reason why their base is losing faith in elections.

We have to keep watch of the endgame here. The GOP’s undermining of faith in the democratic process is as much about appeasing Trump’s base as it is about justifying future undemocratic reforms. While voter suppression has been their electoral tactic for decades, they are now saying the quiet part out loud.

Their core message is that high Black turnout areas are fraudulent. They will follow this up with escalated undemocratic actions. Republicans will spend this decade saying they’re changing election laws under the guise of combating imaginary voter fraud and restoring faith in the election process, faith that their lies helped diminish.

So Ron Johnson spent his time doing this rather than focusing on the bigger issues at hand. Johnson had former CISA Director Chris Krebs at that hearing, and instead of focusing it on one of the most consequential Russia hacks into multiple federal agencies via software Fortune 500 companies also use, Republicans used the hearing to assuage a simpleton losing President’s ego.

I’m far more interested in hearing about the fact that Russia exploited America’s focus on potential election interference as a smokescreen while they launched a sophisticated espionage campaign targeting US agencies. There was no need to interfere. Trump did that on his own. Speaking of doing Russia’s bidding, until the very end, President Trump is a shameless pawn of Putin.

After Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a member of Trump’s own Cabinet, blamed the SolarWinds hack on Russia, Trump took to Twitter to defend Russia… again. Trump downplayed the severity of the hack—which penetrated multiple federal agencies—and tried to say it could have been China. This was just absolutely disgraceful treacherous behavior.

Excuse me while I tear into him for this. President Trump doesn’t have a patriotic bone in his body. From Helsinki to pushing Russian disinformation to attacking NATO allies to ignoring Russian bounties on US troops—the capitulation has been never-ending. Trump has been the primary tool in Russia’s effort to undermine America’s democracy and global standing. Weeks like these make me wonder how much of Trump’s massive debt is owned by Putin and his Oligarchs.

While losing President Trump is making excuses for Russia’s widespread hack of US agencies, President-elect Biden responded by saying, “I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation.”

In other corruption news, we have to take a moment to talk about Attorney General William Barr. On Monday, as the electoral college vote was dominating the news cycle, President Trump tweeted that Barr is resigning as AG. This came after he refused to prosecute Biden pre-election and refused to play along with Trump’s fake voter fraud lies post-election. Barr was replaced by Jeff Rosen. New concerns are rising as Trump reportedly pushes for a Special Counsel probe into Hunter Biden.

Barr then did a Wall Street Journal interview where he admitted that the CIA stayed in its lane and did not spy on the Trump Campaign. You read that right. After shamelessly spreading this Spygate lie his entire tenure, Barr finally quietly admitted it was baseless on his way out the door. No one should be fooled by this sycophant’s reputation rehabilitation tour. Nothing can take back the damage he did to the rule of law. This Barr walk-back might be a taste of what we’ll see from some in the GOP in the coming years. But we’ll never forget.

Another stunning act of depravity we should not forget is the smoking gun email exchanged Politico covered this week. “We want them infected,” read a July email from then-HHS science adviser Paul Alexander. He went on to discuss the need to secure herd immunity, stating, “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…”

The bottom line is this: President Trump pursued an approach that meant more Americans would die via increased infections, and we now have emails confirming what their public statements suggested. Depraved isn’t a strong enough word for this. We need an independent COVID-19 investigatory commission to look into this deliberate malfeasance and hold them accountable.

Knowingly letting a deadly virus run unmitigated through Americans is just evil. It would be one thing if this was just some rogue staffer, but it was actually pushed from the highest levels of Trump’s team. Scott Atlas pushed this nonsense and Trump himself was still praising this callous tactic last week. The good news is Trump lost.

In other good news, the second coronavirus vaccine was approved by the FDA. The fact Moderna’s vaccine also limits infection and not just the disease itself is simply amazing. We didn’t have data yet on whether any of the vaccines would stop infections. This indicates vaccinated individuals will have a significantly reduced chance of spreading the virus.

When it comes to coronavirus relief, there is now a deal that has been made and an incoming vote. But before the deal was made, far too many Republicans clutched their fake fiscal conservative pearls. Republicans didn’t care about the debt when they passed unnecessary stimulus for the rich in the form of their 2017 tax cuts during an already booming economy. Now, when vulnerable Americans need help, they want to regain their fiscal conservatism?

One of the biggest lies about modern Republicans is that they care about fiscal conservatism. Like the lie of “trickle-down economics,” it’s just a buzzword they deploy when they want to avoid helping marginalized communities. It’s a mask for their greed. Prepare for four years of fake Republican ideological posturing and feigned interest in principles they’ve long abandoned amid their effort to obstruct the Biden-Harris administration.

But one thing is for sure, no matter what President Trump tried to do and attempts to do in the future, one month from today, President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be sworn into office.

Let’s dive into yet another Unpresidented week.

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Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

Electoral College Affirms Biden-Harris 306-232 Win

Day 1,425: Monday, December 14

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris (Biden Campaign Photo)

Monday’s top stories:

Putin And McConnell Congratulate Biden As Russia’s Hack Damage Becomes More Clear

Day 1,426: Tuesday, December 15

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and U.S. President Donald Trump give a joint news conference at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, on Monday, July 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Tuesday’s top stories:

“We Want Them Infected”

Day 1,427: Wednesday, December 16

President Donald J. Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence and members of the White House COVID-19 Coronavirus task force – – Thursday, April 16, 2020. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

Wednesday’s top stories:

Biden Condemns The Hack Trump Ignores

Day 1,428: Thursday, December 17

Joe Biden (Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons) and Donald Trump (AP)

Thursday’s top stories:

Absolute Corruption

Day 1,429: Friday, December 18

President Donald Trump speaks with White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner as he departs after a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Friday’s top stories:

Unpresidented // Coronavirus / Donald Trump / Michael Flynn / Military / Republican Party / Rudy Giuliani / Sidney Powell / William Barr

by: Ahmed Baba

Ahmed Baba is the Co-Founder and President of Rantt. Writer of Unpresidented, Ahmed documented and analyzed every day of the Trump presidency. He's also a columnist at The Independent and his work has been cited in The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, Rolling Stone, BuzzFeed, The New York Post, The Huffington Post, Yahoo News, Blavity, Newsweek, The Telegraph, and more. He can be reached at [email protected] or found on Twitter @AhmedBaba_.

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