Woodward: Trump rooting for ‘quadruple train wreck on Nov. 3’

Journalist Bob Woodward on Thursday said that President Trump declining to engage in a peaceful transition of power if he loses the election would be “putting a dagger in the Constitution,” adding that he thinks that the president is “almost wishing for a quadruple train wreck on Nov. 3” in regards to mail-in voting.

“We have a president who has forsaken his basic duty to protect the country, to tell the truth and organize and plan, have some theory of the case what is he going to do as president,” Woodward said in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House.”

“Time and time again we know, and I’ve got more endless examples of this, of him making decisions on impulse, tweeting, driving people crazy who work for him and then they leave or he fires them by tweet and he says the cruelest things.”

“I think the president in all of the things he’s doing here has forsaken a larger duty which is a moral duty to do what’s best for the country,” he added. “This is a moral failure and a leadership failure. This idea about the election he’s predicting and almost wishing for a quadruple train wreck on Nov. 3”

Woodward’s comments come as his second book on the Trump White House, “Rage,” sold more than 600,000 copies in its first week.

They also come as Trump has faced significant pushback from both parties over his refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses in the November election.

For months the president has consistently attacked mail-in voting as having the potential for increased voter fraud despite officials, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, saying there is no evidence to back those claims.

“We’re going to have to see what happens, you know, but I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots. The ballots are a disaster,” Trump said on Thursday night at a rally in Jacksonville, Fla.

“Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation,” he added. “The ballots are out of control. You know it, and you know who knows it better than anyone else? The Democrats know it better than anyone else.”

Wray on Thursday cast doubt on the claim during a Senate committee hearing.

“We have not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election whether it’s by mail or otherwise,” Wray testified to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “We have seen voter fraud at the local level from time to time, so my comments should in no way be construed as minimizing how seriously we take our responsibility to investigate such incidents.”