Florida Man Demands Presidential Reinstatement, Suggests Overthrowing Government

On Tuesday, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, claiming yet again that President Joe Biden isn’t the duly elected president of the United States and suggesting the government should be overthrown. 

In his post, Trump alleged that the FBI and Twitter colluded to elect Joe Biden and that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen. He also claimed without evidence that the two entities spied on his campaign in 2016 and tried to rig it, but failed. 

“What should be done about such a terrible thing, or should we let someone who was elected by cheating and fraud stay in office and continue to destroy our country?” the former president asked. 

This post came just one day after the Jan. 6 Committee called for the US Department of Justice to file four criminal charges against the former president for trying to overturn the 2020 election. These charges include conspiracy and obstruction for his role in the deadly US Capitol Insurrection. 

“President Trump disregarded the rulings of the courts and rejected the findings and conclusions and advice from the Justice Department, his campaign experts, and his White House and Cabinet advisors,” the committee wrote in its summary report. “He chose instead to try to overturn the election on Jan. 6 and took a series of very specific steps to attempt to achieve that result.” 

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The post also came after his tax information was detailed in a new report from Congress. The report revealed that Trump on his federal tax returns declared negative income in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2020, and that he paid a total of $1,500 in income taxes for the years 2016 and 2017. It also revealed that on their 2020 income tax returns, Trump and his wife Melania paid no federal income taxes and claimed a refund of $5.47 million, according to the report by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The reaction from the GOP as a whole, however, was noticeably muted after Trump’s criminal referral on Monday. Unlike four months ago, when federal agents seized classified documents from Trump’s Florida estate, leading Republicans appeared lacking in a sense of intensity and urgency, as noted by the Associated Press. GOP leaders largely avoided the historic referral, while others pressed to weigh in offered small defenses, further showcasing how quickly the political landscape has shifted for Trump as he faces a new legal threat and mounts a third bid for the presidency. This is particularly notable, the AP writes, as the GOP has been mostly unconditional in its loyalty to Trump over the last six years. 

The GOP’s seemingly wavering support of the former president also showed up in November, when Trump’s hand-picked candidates in several high-profile contests were defeated in the midterm elections. Even as Trump’s Truth Social post received nearly 13,000 “retruths” and 38,000 likes, his party appears to be  less willing to stand behind him.