Rudy Giuliani at a pro-Trump rally in Washington, DC:
“Over the next 10 days, we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent. And if we’re wrong, we will be made fools of. But if we’re right, and lot of them will go to jail. So — let’s have trial by combat.”
CNN: “He has told President Donald Trump, the boss he’s served obsequiously for four years, that he cannot submit to demands he overthrow the results of the election.”
“Trump, consumed with conspiracies and unsound legal advice, hasn’t listened. He now appears ready to unleash his rage on a man who has thus far successfully avoided that fate.”
“It’s an excruciating position for Trump’s loyal lieutenant, who has his own political ambitions that, for now, appear to run opposite to his constitutional responsibilities. Even advisers closely aligned with Trump describe the coming assault against Pence as despicable.”
“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it.”
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), on Twitter, May 3, 2016.
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“President-elect Joe Biden is poised to make a final decision in the coming days on his pick for attorney general, a choice that suddenly comes amid a growing sense of optimism from Democrats that their party will control the Senate and will be able to easily confirm the incoming president’s Cabinet nominations,” CNN reports.
“A person familiar with the deliberations tells CNN that Biden will now decide among three final contenders, including federal Judge Merrick Garland, former Alabama Sen. Doug Jones and former acting attorney general Sally Yates, whose name returned to the top tier with the prospect of Democrats winning Senate control after results of both Georgia run-off races become clear.”
“The results of the Georgia Senate run-offs aren’t yet final. But left-wing activists are already pressuring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to take advantage of a possible Democratic majority in the Senate and retire,” Politico reports.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared on Wednesday that Democrats have gained control of the Senate, Axios reports.
Said Schumer: “It feels like a brand new day. For the first time in six years, Democrats will operate a majority in the United States Senate — and that will be very good for the American people.”
He added: “For too long, much-needed help has been stalled or diluted by a Republican-led Senate and President Trump. That will change with a Democratic Senate, Democratic House, and a Democratic President.”
“Buckle up!”
— Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), on Twitter, ahead of a joint session of Congress meeting to ratify Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.
President Trump is already baselessly claiming fraud in Georgia’s Senate runoffs:
“They just happened to find 50,000 ballots late last night. The USA is embarrassed by fools. Our Election Process is worse than that of third world countries!”
Jon Ossoff (D) declared victory in Georgia’s Senate runoff election Wednesday morning as tallies showed him leading incumbent Sen. David Perdue (R) by just over 16,000 votes.
Ossoff’s lead is currently within the 0.5 percent margin that would trigger a statewide recount in the race.
“The House and Senate will convene Wednesday afternoon for a remarkable joint session to formalize President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College victory, with President Trump and his allies plotting to transform the counting session into one final, futile attempt to overturn the results,” the New York Times reports.
“Bipartisan majorities in both chambers are prepared to meet late into the night to beat back the challenges and confirm Mr. Biden as the winner. But by using what is typically a ceremonial proceeding as a forum for trying to subvert a democratic election, Mr. Trump and his allies are going where no party has since the Reconstruction era of the 19th century, when Congress bargained over the presidency.
Its implications, for future elections and the Republican Party, could be significant.
Kevin Williamson in the National Review:
“I have on many occasions criticized the abuse of the word coup in our politics, but that is what this is: an attempted coup d’état under color of law. It would be entirely appropriate today to impeach Trump a second time and remove him from office before his term ends.”
“No one who has participated in this poisonous buffoonery should ever hold office again. There was a time when there was a plausible if sometimes self-serving rationale for working for the Trump administration — that the president is a clueless poseur surrounded by crackpots and frauds, and that he desperately needs good counsel from responsible adults. But the Trump administration is not currently under the guiding influence of any such responsible adults — and there simply is no defending what it is up to. This cannot be excused or explained away.”
Axios: “During a Joint Session with the House, lawmakers plan to object first to Arizona’s results, which come up early in the alphabetical roll call of states. McConnell is expected to be the first senator to speak after he and his colleagues return to their chamber.”
“McConnell will draw on the same principles he laid out during a call with the Republican conference last week. He said Wednesday’s vote certifying Joe Biden’s victory would be ‘the most consequential I have ever cast.'”
“McConnell fears the vote will put Republicans up for re-election in 2022 in a horrible position — forcing them to choose between defying the most popular politician in the party, Donald Trump, and fueling Democratic charges they are undermining democracy.”
Jonathan Swan: “He told advisers he didn’t think he needed to go back. Both candidates, Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, put in a huge behind-the-scenes effort to get him to go back. He plugged them during his Monday rally, but also ranted about the state’s Republican officials and election machinery.”
“Trump was fixated on his own grievances and on increasingly untethered scenarios for how he might overturn the election.”
“It took great effort to get him to focus on any other subject or to convince him that anything beyond his own election factored into his self-interest.”
“President Trump’s allies are hoping Wednesday marks his last stand in a weekslong effort to challenge the November election results, with multiple people close to Trump privately acknowledging that his options will be exhausted once Congress tabulates the Electoral College votes,” NBC News reports.
“Yet people close to Trump also say he still may not relent after this final step in the election process, given that his determination to overturn the results has only intensified despite its having failed multiple times — including state certifications and the Electoral College meeting last month — and scores of legal defeats.”
Said one of Trump’s allies: “It’s going to get worse before it gets better. He’s lost re-election. So for somebody who has no sense of shame, there’s no downside to him letting all the crazy out.”
A video shows Trump supporters heckling Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) — chanting “traitor, traitor, traitor!” — on a flight from Salt Lake City to Washington, D.C. last night.
Washington Post: “The video, which went viral on Tuesday, is the latest sign of a growing divide in the Republican Party over President Trump’s false claims of a rigged election, which Romney has pointedly criticized. The incident foreshadows the rancor expected in the nation’s capital this week as thousands of Trump backers arrive to protest Congress certifying the electoral college victory for President-elect Joe Biden.”
Associated Press: “Warnock, senior pastor of the church where Martin Luther King preached through the height of the Civil Rights movement until his assassination, made history with a surge in Black turnout.”
“To be sure, a narrow win out of 4.4 million votes involves plenty of variables. But Black voters were a force in the early vote and on Election Day. Notably, it wasn’t just in metro Atlanta, but also in rural and small-town counties across South Georgia, where Black turnout has historically lagged.”
“That means it was an alliance spanning from the most affluent Black residents of Atlanta, including recent transplants to Georgia, to those Black Georgia natives who hail from the most economically depressed pockets of the state.”
“Suburbs, my friends, the suburbs. I feel like a one trick pony but here we are again. We went from talking about jobs and the economy to QAnon election conspiracies in 4 short years and — as it turns out — they were listening!”
— Josh Holmes, former top aide to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), on Twitter.
Playbook: “Loeffler’s reputation has been burned. Appointed to her office to help the GOP compete in the suburbs, she failed in her first election. Yet today, she’ll take the anti-democratic step of voting against Biden’s Electoral College win, sealed with millions of lawfully cast ballots in Georgia and across the nation. Loeffler’s money helped finance a brutal campaign against Warnock that provoked Black voters, including the players on the WNBA team she owns.”
“Perdue’s troubles are a testament to the perils of embracing Trumpism. A one-time free-trading establishment Republican, he received 88,000 more votes than Ossoff on Nov. 3, forced into a runoff because he failed to break 50%. He then felt the need to tie himself to Trump even tighter, although Biden had defeated the president in Georgia. As he ran harder right, he ceded the center to Ossoff.”
“While Perdue donned regular-guy denim and Loeffler began dressing as if she drove an 18-wheeler, Democrats made sure to highlight just how rich the two senators were. They were savaged for privately trading stocks after receiving briefings on coronavirus, the threat of which they publicly downplayed.”
Axios: “Top Republicans blame Trump for sabotaging what should have been two easy wins — turning off suburban voters with his chaos and craziness, and sowing distrust of the Peach State election machinery with base voters.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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