In a wildly distorted view of what abiding by the will of the people means in a democracy, a number of White House officials are still refusing to come down from the fantasy that President Donald Trump will remain at his perch in the West Wing on Inauguration Day, when President-elect Joe Biden formally takes his place as the nation’s leader.
When asked by Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney on Friday whether or not Trump would attend the inauguration of his successor, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany offered the head-in-the-sand response that she thinks “the president will attend his own inauguration.”
"I think the president will attend his own inauguration" — Kayleigh McEnany still hasn't acknowledged the reality that Trump lost to Biden and it wasn't particularly close pic.twitter.com/ErAvGsRVgT
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 13, 2020
“We are going to show the nation that we absolutely believe when every legal vote is counted, President Trump will win,” McEnany said, urging Americans to watch a recount in Georgia.
But even if the Trump campaign were to make inroads to subtract a small batch of votes in Georgia, Biden won by margins too large for Trump to overturn the Democrat’s win nationwide.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro seemed to echo a similarly distorted belief on the same network.
Nearly a week after Trump lost the election, he told Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo on Friday of plans to move forward with a second term for the man who fell short of the electoral votes needed to clinch the White House for another four years.
“We’re moving forward here at the White House under the assumption that there will be a second Trump term,” Navarro said, apparently refusing to answer a question about whether a forthcoming Biden administration was likely to undo an executive order signed by Trump on Thursday to ban Americans from investing in a group of Chinese companies.
Navarro then pushed the a baseless vote-counting conspiracy that Biden’s win was all part of “an immaculate deception.”
White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro: “We’re moving forward here at the White House under the assumption that there will be a second Trump term … We have, what appears in some sense to be, an immaculate deception."
(FWIW, there will not be a second Trump term.) pic.twitter.com/qiVfAyZ5G9
— The Recount (@therecount) November 13, 2020
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made similar comments on Tuesday when he called for “a second Trump administration,” in a contradictory effort to undermine democratic institutions in the United States as he leads efforts abroad to advance democracy.
The refusal of Trump loyalists in the White House to accept his defeat, and continue to kick and scream of a stolen election, comes as government officials directly involved in securing the elections and monitoring cybersecurity as votes rolled in on Nov. 3, issued a statement late Thursday lauding last week’s election for being the “most secure in American history.”
