WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s Thursday night speech from the White House Briefing Room left many talking heads and the voting public at large wondering if the President would take legal action against states over ballots and their vote counting process.
Trump’s speech centered around alleged voter fraud and illegitimate ballots.
He further left that question open-ended after an early morning tweet referring to getting the United States highest court involved.
I easily WIN the Presidency of the United States with LEGAL VOTES CAST. The OBSERVERS were not allowed, in any way, shape, or form, to do their job and therefore, votes accepted during this period must be determined to be ILLEGAL VOTES. U.S. Supreme Court should decide!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2020
So, what good would legal action, exactly, do, should Trump pursue it?
Former George W. Bush 2000 aide and Mitt Romney 2008 adviser John Pudner told WMBD News, in a nutshell, it wouldn’t do much good.
“I’m afraid it’s not very realistic at this stage,” he said.
“It’s quite possible observers, if they’d been allowed to view another 100,000 votes, might have thrown out 1,000. I just don’t think the margins are close enough in the case he’s making [to where] he could overturn the margins he’s facing in Pennsylvania and Michigan.”
Pudner said those votes would be in Philadelphia and Detroit, where there were reported issues with people not being able to observe, over which the Trump campaign successfully sued in Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court.
“The problem is, Trump already won that part of the case,” Pudner said. “They had to allow observers in, and that’s what slowed the Pennsylvania numbers coming in for a little while.
“So, he’s kind of already won on that, so there’s really nothing left. At this point, maybe they stop 500 ballots, but I just don’t see anything that’s already been run through the machine being thrown out.
“The genie’s out of the bottle, I’m afraid.”
That said, Pudner added Trump’s aides can try all they want to convince the President legal action would be futile, but it may not work.
“All that matters is what the guy at the top wants,” he said. “Even if a bunch of the staff decides okay, with Georgia going down, we really don’t have a path, if the President wants to keep trying — and hey, the White House is on the line and they should certainly turn over every rock — it sounds like he’s ready to fight this out for a while.
“I’m not sure the whole team would really agree with him, but they’re going to go along with him, obviously.”
The complete interview with Pudner:
