Donald Trump's campaign of lies and distortion will not alter US election result – Steve Cardownie

Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine announcement has raised eyebrows in outgoing President Trump’s camp, prompting his son Donald Jr to tweet “The timing of this is pretty amazing. Nothing nefarious about the timing of this right?”

Mark Esper, right, who was sacked as Donald Trump's Defence Secretary, said: 'Who’s going to come in behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes man’. And then God help us.' (Picture: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Which, were it true, would be right out of Trump’s playbook which is no more than he deserves.

The news that the vaccine is 90 per cent effective has been met with international relief and acclaim and, although there are still some hoops to go through, there is widespread optimism that life may return to normal by spring next year.

The announcement, made on Monday, was expected in mid-October but Pfizer expanded the requirements of its efficacy study, the results of which only became known last Sunday.

The company has said that it intends to produce 1.3 billion doses (which is sufficient to administer it to 650 million people) by the end of next year. Not one to pass up an opportunity, Trump has cast suspicion on the timing of the announcement and, in doing so, has once more tried to make the issue about him.

Of course, he has yet to concede the presidency to President-elect Joe Biden, citing widespread voter fraud and claiming victory was stolen from him by a campaign to swamp polling stations in key states with massive numbers of illegal ballots once it was known that he was winning, in order to swing the results in favour of Biden. Despite evidence to the contrary, he is hell-bent on pursuing matters through the courts in an effort to get the result reversed.

With Biden amassing akin to 75 million votes to Trump’s 71 million, a four million gap in the popular vote is obviously impossible to manufacture by way of presenting fraudulent ballot papers for the count. Even in the “battleground” states, Biden’s lead is such that any such fraudulent undertaking would have to be so massive in scale, involving so many participants, that it would be impossible to conceal.

Conspiracy theorists may not believe it but US astronauts landed on the Moon in July 1969. Donald Trump may not believe it, but he lost the 2020 US election to Joe Biden (Picture: Buzz Aldrin/AP)

This is just another example of Trump’s love of conspiracy theories, jumped on by those who still question events like Kennedy’s assassination, the moon landing, 9/11 among others.

International observers of the election have poured scorn on Trump’s accusations, criticising him for making “baseless allegations of systematic deficiencies in the election”. Perhaps not surprisingly Trump’s buddy, Attorney General Bill Barr has authorised federal prosecutors to begin investigating “substantial allegations” of voter irregularities, prompting the official in the Justice Department who oversees investigations to resign as Barr’s intervention is without precedent.

Trump has continued to wield the axe by firing Defence Secretary, Mark Esper, who said: “Who’s going to come in behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes man’. And then God help us.”

The Democrats are equally determined to defend the result and, with the evidence on their side, will emerge from this latest Trump debacle with their man confirmed in office.

As I said last week, if Trump loses, he will go anything but quietly and, predictably, he has embarked on yet another campaign of lies and distortion in an effort to cling on to power.

He will not succeed, the day of reckoning has passed and Trump has been told by the American electorate “you’re fired!”

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