WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested delaying the November election as he continued to raise the false specter of widespread voting fraud.
"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???" he tweeted.
There is no evidence to support Trump's claims of voting fraud on a massive scale, and adjusting the date of the election would be difficult, if not impossible.
However, the suggestion was an alarming indication that Trump is considering ways to prolong his stay in office as the country reels from a deadly pandemic and the resulting economic crisis.
He tweeted about the election shortly after new data showed the economy shrank by a record one-third in the last quarter.
Trump has also been badly trailing in the polls to Joe Biden, the likely Democratic candidate and former vice president.
The date of the election, which is scheduled for Nov. 3, is set by Congress, not the president. It is difficult to see the Democrat-led House agreeing to a delay.
The Constitution also sets limits on how long the president and vice president can remain in office, and their four-year term expires on Jan. 20.
Trump has previously brushed off questions about whether he was considering a delay for the election.
"The general election will happen on November 3rd," he said on April 3, before his poll numbers nosedived.
