CNN host Jake Tapper spoke on Monday to White House correspondent Abby Phillip about President Donald Trump's crusade to steal the 2020 election. Phillip explained that she thinks the election denial and efforts from Trump have more to do with what he intends to do when he leaves the White House.
"It's about trying to set up a political committee that will fund his political future down the road," Phillip said. "I wouldn't be surprised if, as we have reported, the president considers even straight-up relaunching a sort of re-election bid for 2024 as he is leaving the White House. This is all about trying to make sure that he secures his place within the Republican Party, that he keeps Republican lawmakers, who are currently serving, in line and understanding that he still has sway over his base. That is what this whole thing is about and I think that you'll see the president pretty soon after really planting a flag and saying, 'I am the future of the Republican Party' and warning other Republicans who try to break from him that he is not going anywhere."
Tapper noted that it may be Trump's intention to secure a political future, but he's also "establishing simultaneously as his legacy the fact he is the worst, sorest loser in American political history."
"The big picture of this is a Republican Party being swallowed alive by conspiracies and allowing itself to be completely taken over by that element of its base," Phillip continued. "We can't -- in fact, we can't really call it that. It's some sort of base element of the Republican Party. This is the party. Sitting United States senators who invited a vaccine skeptic to come and testify and someone who is pushing hydroxychloroquine which has been proven to have no impact on the coronavirus, to come before the Senate even as we are on the cusp of a vaccine that could help us through this pandemic.
"You have QAnon supporters being elected to join the Congress," she went on. "It should not be a surprise then that you have sitting members of the House and Senate supporting the president in an effort to build a conspiracy theory around this election that he can live off of for the next four years. This is now what has become of the Republican Party and if people don't want that to be the case, they should probably start speaking up about it now."
See Phillip's takedown below:
