Trump schemes next political moves after effort to overthrow democracy dead ends at Supreme Court

In the end, the guardrails of democracy stayed in place. Trump lost — for the second time at the Supreme Court this week. But instead of helping the effort to curb a deadly pandemic that has claimed nearly 300,000 American lives by easing the transition for his successor, he is already scheming about his next political moves. Before the high court rejected his bid Friday, his campaign announced a cable ad buy to further his fraudulent claims about the election, and he clearly intends to try and meddle in Congress’ counting of the Electoral College results in January.

While waiting to hear from the Supreme Court on Friday, Trump attacked another American institution, opening a new front in his war on science and ethics by pressuring the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration to rush the process for granting emergency use authorization for Pfizer and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine. Ultimately, the FDA greenlighted the vaccine late Friday night in the time frame that was expected.

Trump “put a huge stress test on our democracy,” GOP election lawyer Ben Ginsberg said, reflecting on the destruction that the commander-in-chief has wrought by undermining US election processes and jeopardizing the safety of countless election workers as he pursued frivolous lawsuits that were scorned even by judges he appointed.

“It’s five weeks after Election Day, and the institutions of our democracy held against this onslaught, and so we should be really proud of that,” Ginsberg said to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room” Friday evening. “At the same time, the Republicans who did follow Donald Trump really have an obligation now to make the country strong again, to heal the chinks that Donald Trump tried to put in the foundation and the democracy.”

They knew that the lawsuit would serve as a loyalty litmus test as Trump openly contemplates another run for the White House in 2024, and it was a frightening sign of the GOP’s acquiescence to the President’s dictatorial machinations and acceptance of his wild conspiracy theories.

“The Supreme Court really let us down. No wisdom, No Courage!” Trump tweeted shortly before midnight.

Despite the court’s solid conservative majority — and the fact that Trump named three of the justices seated on the court — there were no noted dissents to the court’s order, which essentially said that Texas has no grounds to challenge how other states conduct their elections.

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said in a statement that they would have allowed Texas to file the case on procedural grounds, but would not have granted any other relief — making it clear that they, too, rejected the substance of Texas’ arguments.

“Every American who cares about the rule of law should take comfort that the Supreme Court — including all three of President Trump’s picks — closed the book on the nonsense,” Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse — a rare Trump critic in the GOP — said in a statement Friday evening.

Stephen Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and University of Texas Law professor, said the court’s unsigned order was “the closest possible thing to the last nail in the coffin for election-related legal challenges.”

Even Trump seemed to explicitly acknowledge earlier in the day that Biden would be the next president in a tweet calling on the Supreme Court to “show great Courage & Wisdom” and “Save the USA!!” In the same tweet, he alleged that “the Biden administration will be a scandal-plagued mess for years to come.” But a White House spokesman said the tweet should not be interpreted as a concession.

Biden’s campaign hailed the Supreme Court’s decision. “Dozens of judges, election officials from both parties, and Trump’s own Attorney General have dismissed his baseless attempts to deny that he lost the election,” Mike Gwin, Biden’s campaign spokesman said. “President-elect Biden’s clear and commanding victory will be ratified by the Electoral College on Monday, and he will be sworn in on January 20th.”

Trump tries to subvert science

Shortly after the FDA issued emergency use authorization for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the President released a pre-recorded video on Twitter heralding the “medical miracle” of the arrival of a “safe and effective vaccine in just nine months.”

“This is one of the greatest scientific achievements in history,” he said. “It will save millions of lives and soon end the pandemic once and for all.”

He thanked “all of the brilliant scientists, technicians, doctors and workers who made this all possible,” and highlighted the safety of the vaccines noting that the clinical trials showed that both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna were 95% effective. Moderna is seeking emergency use authorization from the FDA next week.

The first doses of the vaccine could be injected as early as Monday or Tuesday if an advisory panel to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with that agency, also sign off. The CDC advisory panel has now scheduled an emergency meeting for Saturday to discuss that decision.

“I promised that we would produce a vaccine in record time before the end of the year,” Trump said. “They said it couldn’t be done, but with today’s announcement, we have now achieved that goal.”

He called the vaccine “verifiably safe and effective,” but hours earlier he smashed through the time-honored tradition in the United States of separating politics from science by trying to interfere in the FDA’s authorization process.

On Twitter Friday, Trump called the FDA “a big, old, slow turtle.”

“Get the dam vaccines out NOW, Dr. Hahn @SteveFDA,” Trump tweeted at Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, misspelling the word “damn.” “Stop playing games and start saving lives!!!”

At the time of his pressure campaign, sources told CNN the FDA had been expected to grant emergency use authorization either Friday or Saturday, so it was unclear why Trump felt the need to weigh in on a decision that would come within hours.

Hahn called reports of the conversation, which first appeared in The Washington Post, “an untrue representation” and said the FDA was “encouraged to continue working expeditiously.”

Slaoui, an immunologist who previously headed vaccine development at GlaxoSmithKline, said that the FDA has conducted “an effective, transparent, thorough, in-depth review” of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine and asked Americans to “keep an open mind” and an eye on the transparency of the process.

“We have to go out there and engage with all of the leadership at all levels in our communities to help explain the features with of the vaccine, its performance, and hopefully engage with people and convince them” to take it, Slaoui said.