Virtually any serious intellectual writing will be drowned out during Election Week, so I’m pausing until next Monday. Instead, I’ll just remind you of some bets.
In the 2016 election, I had three outstanding bets. I won all three. This year, I only made one election bet, which I’ve already won. I do however have one outstanding election-related bet: That Trump does not leave office early. Specifically:
If Donald Trump dies in office, resigns, is removed by the Senate after impeachment, or otherwise is permanently removed as per the the 25th Amendment, or if it never happens that he takes the Oath of office as POTUS on Jan 20, 2017, the BC owes [redacted] $350. Otherwise, [redacted] owes BC $100″.
There is considerable speculation that Trump, if defeated, will not gracefully acknowledge defeat. I considered this a plausible scenario back in this 2016 bet, though I ultimately won the conventional way.
This time around, many suspect Trump will actually try to illegally cling to office. While you can imagine that this attempted clinging will get him removed early, I seriously doubt it will. If Trump stubbornly refuses to leave office, the system will just let him run out his clock, ranting all the while, then sideline him on Inauguration Day.
P.S. Remember my Twitter poll from a year ago? It was really about Bolivia…
Suppose Trump loses the 2020 election and loses the recount, but refuses to leave office.
How should U.S. military leadership respond?
— Bryan Caplan (@bryan_caplan) November 14, 2019
READER COMMENTS
robc
Nov 2 2020 at 1:25pm
If Trump wins reelection, do you have another 4 years to lose that bet? I think you should have put a 1/20/2021 time limit on it.
Alan Goldhammer
Nov 2 2020 at 2:50pm
One reason that is possible is the ‘Richard Nixon Move’ He resigns early in return for a pardon on any Federal crimes by Vice President Pence. I have no idea what the full extent of his legal liabilities are once he leaves office and certainly Presidential pardons do not apply to State and Local legal action against him.
Mark Bahner
Nov 2 2020 at 6:52pm
It would be extremely surprising to me for Pence to do that. It killed Gerald Ford politically, and I’d be very surprised if Pence has zero political ambitions in the post-Trump world.
Plus, I doubt anyone could convince Donald Trump he’s done any federal crimes (that a Roy-Cohn-type lawyer couldn’t get him off).
nobody.really
Nov 3 2020 at 9:46am
Consider: What would a Biden inauguration day look like for Trump? Would we see phalanx of process-servers gathered around the Capitol, just waiting to serve Trump with papers? Would we see prosecutors jostling to take him into custody? And even without them, he’s looking at a $400+ million bill coming due pretty soon.
If you were Trump, the Nixon gambit might look pretty appealing–perhaps coupled with a long business-related trip to some nation that lacks extradition treaties with the US. Maybe it’s time to revive plans for that Trump Tower in Moscow?
Pence might do it for money–for example, to become a talking head on a future Trump Broadcasting Network. Or Trump might have some incriminating info about Pence, secured at the time that he agreed to add Pence to the ticket. Pure speculation, of course.
More significantly, today’s circumstances differ from the Nixon era. Nixon’s job approval was 24% by the time he resigned, and 57% thought he should be removed from office over Watergate. In short, REPUBLICANS had turned against him. In contrast, Trump has been accused of worse things than Watergate, and his job approval ratings remain roughly what they’ve always been. His supporters value loyalty to Trump above all else. So, by demonstrating loyalty to Trump, Pence might actually enhance his political prospects in a future GOP run.
TMC
Nov 3 2020 at 1:36pm
And what would he need to be pardoned for? Give the fact they had to fake evidence to attempt an impeachment, I’d guess there’s little to charge Trump with.
Mark Bahner
Nov 4 2020 at 12:12am
Do you think that someone like Donald Trump can pay essentially nothing for 10 out of 15 years and stay completely within the federal tax code?
How about deducting $70,000 for hair styling?
Is that legal? (I wouldn’t want to bet my freedom that it is.)
Mark Z
Nov 4 2020 at 1:33am
I think the statute of limitations for tax evasion/fraud is 3 years, though in some cases 6 (according to a cursory google search), so I’m guessing he probably can’t be prosecuted anymore.
Comments are closed.