Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review: “Two days ago, the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman reported that Donald Trump ‘has been telling a number of people he’s in contact with that he expects he will get reinstated by August.’ In response, many figures on the right inserted their fingers into their ears and started screaming about fake news. Instead, they should have listened – because Haberman’s reporting was correct. I can attest, from speaking to an array of different sources, that Donald Trump does indeed believe quite genuinely that he – along with former senators David Perdue and Martha McSally – will be ‘reinstated’ to office this summer after ‘audits’ of the 2020 elections in Arizona, Georgia, and a handful of other states have been completed.”

“I can attest, too, that Trump is trying hard to recruit journalists, politicians, and other influential figures to promulgate this belief – not as a fundraising tool or an infantile bit of trolling or a trial balloon, but as a fact… The scale of Trump’s delusion is quite startling. This is not merely an eccentric interpretation of the facts or an interesting foible, nor is it an irrelevant example of anguished post-presidency chatter. It is a rejection of reality, a rejection of law, and, ultimately, a rejection of the entire system of American government. There is no Reinstatement Clause within the United States Constitution. Hell, there is nothing even approximating a Reinstatement Clause within the United States Constitution. The election has been certified, Joe Biden is the president, and, until 2024, that is all there is to it. It does not matter what one’s view of Trump is. It does not matter whether one voted for or against Trump. It does not matter whether one views Trump’s role within the Republican Party favorably or unfavorably. We are talking here about cold, hard, neutral facts that obtain irrespective of one’s preferences; it is not too much to ask that the former head of the executive branch should understand them.”