Donald Trump Demands to Be Declared 'Rightful Winner' of 2020 Election Nearly 2 Years After Losing
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty President Donald Trump
It's been nearly 22 months since Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. But the former president's insistence that he won has reached a new and perplexing peak.
After making a familiar yet bogus claim about how he would have "easily won" if not for "massive FRAUD & ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our Country," the former and twice-impeached president proposed a "REMEDY" in a Truth Social post on Monday morning.
"Declare the rightful winner or — and this would be the minimal solution — declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!"
Trump pushed the idea again 14 hours later.
"Declare the rightful winner, or hold a new Election, NOW! Our Country, which is failing badly, knows the 'score,' and will never accept Criminal Election Interference," he wrote in a follow-up post at 1:46 a.m. ET.
In making his demand to be reinstated as president or to hold a do-over election, Trump pointed to Hunter Biden's laptop and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's comments about a warning to his company about Russian propaganda ahead of the 2020 election.
Though there was no mention of Hunter Biden or his laptop, Zuckerberg said Facebook made a decision to limit the appearance of stories about it in its newsfeed to allow time for fact-checking, HuffPost reports.
As we've said, nothing about the Hunter Biden laptop story is new. Below is what Mark told Sen. Johnson in Oct 2020 and what Mark told Joe Rogan this week. The FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference – nothing specific about Hunter Biden. https://t.co/pHtzvh6r0r
— Meta Newsroom (@MetaNewsroom) August 26, 2022
"As we've said, nothing about the Hunter Biden laptop story is new. Below is what Mark told Sen. Johnson in Oct 2020 and what Mark told Joe Rogan this week," Facebook's parent company Meta said in a statement last week. "The FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference — nothing specific about Hunter Biden."
RELATED: What We Know and Don't Know About the Investigation of Hunter Biden
Still, that was enough for Trump, who apparently hit caps lock and wrote that the "FBI BURIED THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY BEFORE THE ELECTION" in his Truth Social post on Monday.
On Tuesday, he added that the "Presidential Election was BADLY & IRREPARABLY TAINTED by the FBI's FAKE description of the 'Laptop from Hell' to Facebook & the LameStream Media" in making his case for another 2020 election in 2022.
Setting aside the facts that clearly show Biden won the 2020 election by a substantial margin, that the election was certified on Jan. 6, 2021 (albeit after a delay due to rioting Trump supporters), that Biden was sworn in on Jan. 20 and that he's been president ever since, could Trump somehow be made president again before winning a new election in 2024 if he decides to run?
The answer to that mind-bender of a hypothetical question is no.
Alex Wong/Getty Joe Biden (left) is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States at his inauguration Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol.
National Review's Charles C. W. Cooke wrote a piece in 2021 about Trump's belief then about getting reinstated to the presidency and called the idea "otherworldly and obscene."
"This is not merely an eccentric interpretation of the facts or an interesting foible, nor is it an irrelevant example of anguished post-presidency chatter. It is a rejection of reality, a rejection of law, and, ultimately, a rejection of the entire system of American government," Cooke wrote.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer.
"There is no Reinstatement Clause within the United States Constitution. Hell, there is nothing even approximating a Reinstatement Clause within the United States Constitution. The election has been certified, Joe Biden is the president, and, until 2024, that is all there is to it."
Lawrence Tribe, a Constitution expert and Harvard Law professor, considered whether there may be other motivations behind the call for a do-over as Trump faces intensifying investigations on several fronts. "If he's setting up an insanity defense," Tribe tweeted Monday, "here's some free legal advice: It won't work."
