{"id":92143,"date":"2021-01-19T07:52:44","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T12:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=92143"},"modified":"2021-01-19T07:52:44","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T12:52:44","slug":"auto-draft-448","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2021\/01\/19\/auto-draft-448\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happens If a President Refuses to Leave"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"VOA \u2014 Despite virulently opposing the results of the November presidential election won by former Vice President Joe Biden, President Donald Trump is planing to leave the White House the morning of January 20.<\/p>\n

He will follow in the footsteps of every single one of his predecessors. No president in American history has refused to exit the executive mansion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But what would happen if one did?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe\u00a0principal\u00a0goal in designing our system was that we\u00a0not have\u00a0a monarch with indefinite tenure. The president has a four-year term and if he gets re-elected,\u00a0great, but if he doesn’t, then he goes away,\u201d says Brian Kalt, a professor of law at Michigan State University\u2019s College of Law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Constitution, the supreme law of the United States, states that the president, \u201cshall hold his Office during the Term of four Years.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the 20th amendment declares that his term ends at noon on January 20 and the new president takes the oath and becomes president at noon on January 20,\u201d Kalt says. \u201cAt noon, this person is not the president anymore\u00a0…\u00a0he’s a trespasser at that point.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"U.S.<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
U.S. President Barack Obama (R) waves alongside first lady Michelle Obama as former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush wave as they prepare to depart the U.S. Capitol on Inauguration Day in Washington, Jan. 20, 2009.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What would happen if a president refused to leave the White House?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the new president was inaugurated, he would call on the Secret Service or the military to escort the old president out of the White House,\u201d says historian Bruce\u00a0Kuklick. \u201cAnd it would happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Besides, occupying the White House does not make a person the president.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes you president is being inaugurated president of the United States as a result of a process of deciding who won the election,\u201d says Kate Masur, an associate professor of history at Northwestern University. \u201cThere’s nothing in the Constitution that says you have to be literally in the White House.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Officials throughout the government are crucial to the peaceful transfer of power. Many federal workers, including those in the military, Secret Service and FBI, take an oath to defend the Constitution, which means recognizing the winner of the Electoral College vote.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Constitution outlines that there is an Electoral\u00a0College,\u00a0and it gives an outline of how\u00a0a new\u00a0president is chosen,\u201d Masur says. \u201cAnd if you refuse to cooperate with the procedures established under that part of the Constitution that lays the framework for how a president is chosen, you are violating your oath of office.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Former<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
Former presidents and first ladies, Jimmy Carter, Rosalynn Carter, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush and Laura Bush attend the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th U.S. president in Washington, Jan. 20, 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Historian\u00a0Kuklick\u00a0says the weight of political culture and public opinion, rather than specific words in the Constitution, are what prevent American presidents from overstaying their welcome.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guy couldn’t get away with it and it’s not a matter of what’s written in the Constitution,\u201d he says. \u201cIt’s about the conventions of government and the traditions. I mean, there just wouldn’t be any support for his doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kuklick\u00a0says democratic traditions like free and fair elections\u00a0and the peaceful transfer of power are integral to how Americans see themselves. And these dearly held conventions are not something they\u2019d let go of lightly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you’re a U.S. national, from the time you’ve gone to kindergarten, you\u2019ve heard the stories about how the United States operates and the kind of constitutional democracy it is. And in your own lifetime, you’ve seen presidents lose and go out of power,\u201d says\u00a0Kuklick. \u201cIt’s just part of the pageantry and majesty of this constitutional regime\u00a0\u2026\u00a0It’s born and bred into them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 Despite virulently opposing the results of the November presidential election won by former Vice President Joe Biden, President Donald Trump is planing to leave the White House the morning of January 20. He will follow in the footsteps of every single one of his predecessors. No president in American history has refused to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recposts"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92143"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92146,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92143\/revisions\/92146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}