Only in Donald Trump’s America would a lawfully elected incoming president have to organize his own inauguration and transition as if it were a coup. The situation after the Electoral College votes were counted remained volatile enough to scare Mitch McConnell, according to Bob Woodward’s new book Peril. McConnell knew that folksy Biden would pick up the telephone and talk about working together.

McConnell also knew that any communication with Biden would validate Biden’s victory, which would make Trump furious beyond words and even less predictable. So McConnell created a behind-the-scenes communication system that, again, looked more like a plan for a couple of coup plotters than victors in an election. From Business Insider:

“McConnell worried Trump might react negatively and upend the upcoming, hotly contested runoff Senate elections in Georgia,” the book states according to Business Insider. “He also said he did not want Biden, a serial telephone user, to call him. Any call from Biden was sure to infuriate Trump and set off unwanted calls from him, asking if he believed Biden had won the presidency.

To keep things under wraps, McConnell reached out to GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas to speak privately with Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, a Biden confidant, about a ‘back channel’ for the then-majority leader to have a level of communication with the president-elect. Cornyn said that the senators were ‘in a delicate situation’ since Trump may have assumed that the men were ‘cutting a deal behind his back to cut him out,’ which would make him ‘even more irrational.'”

Amazing. The guys following the law and the Constitution were the ones setting up networks to “plot” how to keep things on the level. McConnell was facilitating getting someone from the other party inaugurating like a normal presidential transition. Yet the entire thing sounds like an underground coup.

Only Trump.

****

[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak