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The picture remains implausible for a president who will likely never concede and said on Sunday that nothing would convince him to have lost. Still, Republicans and Trump aides are encouraging him to at least consider attending Biden’s swearing-in, hoping his presence will reflect his character well and help preserve his future influence, but also convince Americans that the he election was fair.
“I hope the president is there on inauguration day,” Senator Roy Blunt, the Republican from Missouri overseeing the January inauguration, told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday. ‘Union”.
Blunt, who declined to call Biden the president-elect, has always said it was “likely” that the former vice president will be sworn in on Jan.20. He said he “continues to work to see what we can do to have both the President there and have Vice President Biden there, probably sworn in that day.”
Like others around Trump who fear his still-vested election conspiracies will harm both his own position and the position of Republicans going forward, Blunt has appealed to the prospect that Trump may hold onto more. influence if he leaves the White House with dignity.
“I think President Trump has an important role to play,” Blunt said. “I hope he embraces this and watches how you move towards what’s next for him assuming this election goes as it looks like it will.”
It is not known whether the outgoing president follows this advice. Trump hasn’t taken any of the traditional steps of an outgoing Commander-in-Chief, including inviting Biden to a meeting in the Oval Office or even phoning him with any kind of conciliatory message.
It took weeks after Biden became president-elect of the Trump administration to officially begin the presidential transition, which raised major concerns about the safety and planning of the distribution of the coronavirus vaccine.
The transition has now started, and members of the Trump administration are discussing with Biden’s team what to expect when they take office in January. But Trump has made no attempt to demonstrate proper transition etiquette to his subordinates as he continues to publish false and baseless allegations of voter fraud.
Speaking in an interview on Sunday, Trump declined to offer a timeline for when he could ease his lost battle to overturn the election results. And he admitted that even if Biden takes office, he won’t be convinced he lost.
“My mind won’t change in six months,” he told Fox.
Six months is well after the Jan. 20 inauguration, and a president convinced he is unfairly ousted hardly seems likely to show up and watch someone else take office.
Calls for Trump to preserve Americans’ confidence in their election hardly seem like a winning argument for a leader whose entire goal appears to undermine confidence in the Democratic process to ignore the fact that he has lost.
Still, a person familiar with the situation says she believes Trump’s advisers will strongly encourage him to attend the Jan. 20 inauguration, even if he doesn’t concede the election, as that would better preserve his potential influence. in the future – including if he decides. show up again in 2024 – if he doesn’t seem like a sore loser.
Trump told reporters on Thursday he had already decided what to do on inauguration day. “I’ll be honest, I know the answer, but I don’t want to say it yet,” he said. But the assistants saw this more as a way to push the issue and did not take it to mean that a real decision had been made.
Speaking on CNN on Sunday, Blunt said he had not spoken directly to Trump about attending the inauguration. But he said he was in touch with the president’s aides on the best ways to ensure he can continue to be a Republican Party player in the future.
“I have certainly encouraged his staff to look at the transition now, to look at the opportunity in Georgia to help us win those Senate seats, to look at what the president can do, if the president leaves the White House, like he says he will do it if he loses the electoral college vote, to help us win back the House in 2022, “he said.
When Trump was sworn in four years ago, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama greeted him at the White House for coffee before heading to the ceremony. This followed the established practice of the outgoing president of accommodating the incoming president, a symbolic demonstration of the peaceful transfer of power that has defined the US government for more than two centuries.
Mrs. Obama later admitted that it had been a difficult day for her, especially because Trump had spread racist lies about her husband’s birthplace. But she endured it anyway, she said, because of its importance in maintaining a peaceful transfer.
The sitting president typically leaves the White House for one last time alongside the incoming president, sharing a presidential limousine ride to the U.S. Capitol for the swearing-in ceremony.
Later, the new former president usually leaves Washington for one last time aboard a military helicopter, taken to Joint Base Andrews for a final ride on the plane that would have been called Air Force One when they were president.
Whether Trump is participating in any of these traditions is now the subject of intense speculation, even among his aides, few believe he would take conciliatory steps as he disputes the validity of the election.
Left behind in the Oval Office is usually a letter from president to president, another tradition that no one really knows if Trump will respect.
In the letter Obama wrote to Trump – reported by CNN in 2017 – he offered prescient advice that few could say was followed.
“We are only temporary occupants of this office. This makes us the guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions – such as the rule of law, the separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties – for which our ancestors fought and bled, ”Obama wrote.
“Regardless of the push and pull of everyday politics,” he continued, “it’s up to us to leave these instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we have found them.”
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