White House Claims Trump Was Only Joking About Two Extra Years To Replace Those “Stolen” By Mueller Probe

The Washington Post reports:

President Trump for months has griped, complained and tweeted about what he says is the unfair Russia “witch hunt” investigation that has consumed nearly half of his presidency. Now, the president has floated a possible solution: two bonus years. White House officials and others close to the president said he was joking and is not serious about trying to increase his first four-year term by 50 percent — an extension that would violate the Constitution and has no historical precedent.

“Everything that he says is a trial balloon — even his, quote, jokes are trial balloons,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University professor who studies authoritarian rulers. “But if you look at what he jokes about, it’s always things like this — it’s the extension of his rights, it’s the infringement of liberties. And authoritarians are continually testing the boundaries to see what they can get away with, and everything he does is a challenge to Democrats to mount some response against him.”

Hit the link for mocking reactions to Democratic fears from Lindsey Graham and other Republican leaders.