A Closer Look: Seth Meyers on the real threat from Trump’s election tweet

In A Closer Look, Seth Meyers reacted to President Donald Trump’s tweet about the election date

President Donald Trump floating the idea of pushing back the election was something his opponents predicted would happen and something his supporters promised never would. Regardless, it’s not something that will come to fruition as Seth Meyers explained in “A Closer Look.”

As part of his active campaign to delegitimize mail-in voting, President Trump suggested that the election could be moved from Nov. 3 to ensure a safer, more secure process. The tweet was met with overwhelming disputed and forced many leading Republicans to publicly disagree with President Trump’s idea.

President Trump’s critics, including former Vice President Joe Biden, have warned that he could do something like this if he sees defeat as imminent. It echoes what Bill Maher has been saying for months now: that President Trump may not leave the White House regardless of the election results.

The tweet may also have been a distraction considering it was published the same day as some discouraging economic reports. But as Seth Meyers explained in “A Closer Look,” the threat to move the election date is an empty one but that doesn’t mean Americans shouldn’t be worried about President Trump.

A Closer Look paints Trump’s election day tweet as the culmination of all his failures

For at least the past week, Late Night with Seth Meyers has been hammering home the desperation setting in at the White House and in the Republican Party. Former Vice President Joe Biden maintains a strong lead over President Trump including in many important states. The economy continues to struggle and no miracle cure has been found for the novel coronavirus.

It means that to secure reelection, President Trump would actually have to govern and his administration would have to enact policies and strategies to help Americans. Meyers knows this will never happen, calling the president an “aspiring autocrat” while highlighting the many failures over the past seven months.

Meyers reminds his audience that only Congress has the power to move the election date. Like many other Twitter threats from the president’s account, this one is baseless. But simply fact-checking President Trump isn’t enough, warns Meyers. Attorney General William Barr and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made it clear that they are willing to muddy the waters when it comes to discussing President Trump’s power to move the election.

“A Closer Look” suggests that Team Trump is laying the groundwork to challenge or delay the election as a last-ditch effort. Meyers has repeatedly pointed out failures in leadership. Here he says an administration that has no interest in leading or governing but instead in maintaining power is the threat Americans need to acknowledge.

What did you think of this installment of “A Closer Look”? Share your thoughts in the comment section. Keep checking Last Night On for more from Late Night with Seth Meyers and the rest of late night television.