By refusing to accept the election results and blocking the normal work of a presidential transition, U.S. President Donald Trump is putting the United States at risk for no good purpose. Even if he had a legal case that the election results might be overturned—which he assuredly does not—there would be no harm in letting President-elect Joe Biden’s team begin the transition work, which could always be halted in case Trump achieves the outcome he desires. If anything, blocking the transition effort underscores how weak Trump knows his legal case to be. Once again, he is displaying his own personal weakness to a watching world.
But while this interruption creates real problems for the incoming Biden team, one shouldn’t exaggerate the damage. The world’s collective nerves are frayed enough without compounding our worries about how delays in the U.S. presidential transition could lead to a domestic or international crisis.
