Alison Sullivan
Donald Trump has been doing everything he can to overturn the election since Joe Biden won in November. While he has been enabled by many high-ranking Republicans throughout this coup attempt, it seems like even people close to Trump are beginning to distance themselves from him—and he’s starting to notice.
Axios reports that Trump has been making it very difficult for White House officials to stick by him as his views have gotten more extreme. Talking to top officials, they’ve heard that the president is angry at the following people: Vice President Mike Pence, chief of staff Mark Meadows, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Secretary of State Pompeo, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The Pence anger was supposedly kicked off by this ad created by The Lincoln Project that suggests his VP is drawing away from him. If true, that means he actually pays attention to them:
A big part of Trump’s anger is that he thinks anyone discouraging him from pursuing certain actions is a coward:
At this point, if you’re not in the “use the Department of Homeland Security or the military to impound voting machines” camp, the president considers you weak and beneath contempt.
In addition to wanting to declare martial law and take over states with the military, Trump keeps asking advisors if he can get state legislatures to rescind their electoral votes and being told no, which only makes him angrier.
It is Pence’s job to validate the election result, and he is supposed to do so on January 6th. While it is his constitutional duty, Trump will obviously see it as a betrayal. At least he has the foresight to know it will be happening, though things are probably very tense in the Oval Office right now.