Critics of former President Donald Trump seized on a recent social media post to make the claim that he is in favor of dismantling the U.S. Constitution.
In a statement on his Truth Social platform, he responded to evidence found in internal Twitter documents by declaring that apparent fraud warrants a redo of the 2020 presidential election. Furthermore, he indicated that the situation “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
Prominent rivals — including his successor — have spoken out against the perceived constitutional threat in recent days. White House spokesperson Andrew Bates declared Trump’s supposed attack on the nation’s supreme legal document “anathema to the soul of our nation,” asserting that it “should be universally condemned.”
Even Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who touted the release of damning company documents and reinstated the former president’s suspended account last month, joined in on the criticism.
The Constitution is greater than any President. End of story.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 5, 2022
As with countless other remarks that have been widely condemned by politicians and media outlets, Trump subsequently asserted that his statement was fundamentally misinterpreted by critics.
“The Fake News is actually trying to convince the American People that I said I wanted to ‘terminate’ the Constitution,” he wrote in the first of two Truth Social posts on Monday. “This is simply more DISINFORMATION & LIES, just like RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, and all of their other HOAXES & SCAMS.”
His true intention in posting the earlier message, he explained, was simply to insist that the appropriate “steps must be immediately taken” to address the 2020 fraud.
Trump later posted — in all caps — that “if an election is irrefutably fraudulent, it should go to the rightful winner or, at a minimum, be redone,” adding: “Where open and blatant fraud is involved, there should be no time limit for change!”
A few establishment and anti-Trump Republicans have attracted some attention for speaking out against his remarks, with some suggesting that such rhetoric has effectively derailed his 2024 White House bid.
“I’m at a loss for words,” said U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), predicting that Trump’s plan to secure a third GOP presidential nomination is “increasingly less likely given statements like that.”
