On CNN Wednesday, legendary Watergate reporter Bob Woodward issued a dire warning about the position of American democracy as President Donald Trump tries to delegitimize the upcoming election — and called on Congress to act.
"We now have a constitutional problem," said Woodward. "The executive branch is the president. He clearly can not stabilize the electoral process. In fact, he's stoking — let's make it unstable, the Supreme Court really has no power at this moment. But the Congress does. And it seems to me it's reached a boiling point. I mean, we are teetering here."
"The Congress needs to step up," added Woodward. "Maybe McConnell and Schumer from the Senate, Pelosi and McCarthy from the House getting together. I mean, they can't get together on a COVID relief bill. But this now is important, and they need to sit down and say what — the ball is in their court. They have to do something to stabilize this. Maybe they could come up with the bipartisan agreement on constitutional and electoral stability and actually say this is what we need to do ... with all this talk and all of the uncertainty we are heading right into, they've got to find some way to get this calmed down."
"You saw that headline in The New York Times. 'Debate made clear the gravest threat to the election is Trump himself,'" said anchor Wolf Blitzer. "So what's the point, Bob, that you're trying to make about the danger to the American constitutional system, the elections, the U.S. democracy right now?"
"Well, it's teetering, Wolf," said Woodward. "Look at what the president has said. To reiterate, it's not debate commissions, the absurdity about white supremacy, and so forth. I mean, that's so embarrassing. But the basic issue is, can you go out and vote in some coherent way? Can there be the high expectation, if not the inevitability, that your vote is going to be counted? The Congress has to do something. They can't just sit by and say, oh, not our problem ... where is the spine and where are the brains and where — sorry to use this, where is the moral compass for the country? Congress has it, and they can do something instantly if they can reach agreement. Good luck."
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