“At rallies across the Midwest and Sun Belt swing states, President Donald Trump has been openly discussing murky schemes to prevent legitimate ballots from being counted, escalating threats to disenfranchise millions of American as the weeks-long voting season ends tonight and his pathway to reelection becomes increasingly narrow. ‘The Election should end on Nov. 3, not weeks later!’ the president said on Friday. He repeated the claim at an event in Dubuque, Iowa on Sunday, adding falsely, ‘That’s the way it’s been, and that’s the way it should be.'”

“‘When Donald Trump says, ‘I think I deserve a third term, or I think the election should end on election night, that’s the way it’s always been,’ I don’t think he’s joking. I think we should take him deadly seriously,’ said Democratic senator and top Joe Biden surrogate Chris Coons. He compared Trump’s statements to aspiring autocrats in young democracies that he dealt with when he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on African Affairs. ‘We would rally the international community and say, ‘No, you should not do that. It’s not a good idea. That violates the norms of democracy.’’ But most Republicans, from critics to allies of Trump, have remained publicly silent. It’s not new for Trump’s party brethren to duck and cover when he says something troubling. But after five years of perfecting the art of explaining how they ‘didn’t see the tweet’ — the much parodied talking point to which Republicans on Capitol Hill often resort — it is shocking but not surprising that they aren’t speaking up now, even when the integrity of America’s electoral system is under attack by their party’s leader” – Politico.