A postponement of the US presidential election? "Trump has no power to change the date"

For the first time on Thursday, US President Donald Trump publicly spoke of a postponement of the presidential election. An announcement effect, points to the microphone of Europe Amy Porter, spokesperson for Democrats Abroad France, the American Democratic Party in France. According to her, the tenant of the White House "is the king of distraction" and launched this debate so as not to have to face the consequences of the health crisis. "He had just received the news that the economy has plunged -32%, four times more than the 2008 crisis. This is to distract us from the 150,000 deaths that might not have taken place in the United States, because he completely mismanaged the health crisis "

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"If Donald Trump had read the constitution, he would know that the president has no power to change the date of the election"

To justify this option, Donald Trump highlighted the risks of fraud linked, according to him, to the Covid-19 epidemic. "2020 will be the most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history," he tweeted, referring to the expanded use of postal voting for the November 3 ballot. "It will be a real shame for the United States. Postpone the election until people can vote normally, safely ???," he added.

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote ???

To this, Amy Porter responds curtly: "If Donald Trump had read the constitution, he would know that the president has no power to change the date of the election," she says at the microphone of Europe 1. " It is engraved in the constitution since 1845. We voted during the civil war, we voted during the war of 14-18, we voted during the Second World War and we will vote on November 3, "says the Democrat. . 

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A politically impossible postponement

Factually, Amy Porter is right. However, on paper, it would be possible to postpone the presidential election. But on paper only, because it is the Congress, which brings together the House of Representatives (with a Democratic majority) and the Senate (with a majority Republican), which could decide. Politically, pushing through such an agreement is more than unlikely.

And even if the election were postponed, Donald Trump would only stay in office until the beginning of January, his term coming to an end regardless of what happens four years after his inauguration. The country would enter a phase of political instability and, by the time of the new election, it would have to be Chuck Grassley, the Republican Speaker of the Senate, who would be staying in the White House.