GOP lawmaker says Trump should 'invoke the Insurrection Act' to stay in power

A Republican state senator from North Carolina said this week that President Donald Trump should "invoke the Insurrection Act" to stay in the White House and prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office.

Local news station WRAL reports that Sen. Bob Steinburg wrote a Facebook post this week in which he favorably quoted Ret. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a Trump-loving conspiracy theorist who has told Trump to suspend habeas corpus and declare a "national emergency" as a means to stay in the White House.

In an interview with WRAL, Steinburg claimed that he was not explicitly endorsing McInerney's ideas and said that he was "putting out there options that others say still remain on the table."

Under further questioning, however, Steinburg admitted he'd be on board with suspending core civil liberties to keep Trump in power, as he believes that Biden somehow stole the election from the president.

"There’s something going on here bigger than what anybody is willing to talk about," he said. "I’m not nuts."

He then lashed out at politicians and the media who mocked voter fraud conspiracy theories.

"They think we’re just bunch of boobs out here in the hinterland," he said. "Well, these boobs are waking up.”

When asked why the Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-appointed justices, refused to even hear a Trump-backed voter fraud complaint, Steinburg replied that Chief Justice John Roberts was being blackmailed.

"I hear this all the time," Steinburg said of the purported blackmail plot. "All the time.”