But the president suddenly went from sourness to delight. And inspiration! He had another way of dealing with COVID. If the Democrats were using COVID against him, he would use it against them: they could just use COVID as a reason to delay the election. “People can’t get to the polls. It’s a national emergency. Right?” He looked around to everybody for their assent—and for congratulations on his great idea.

There was often a small moment of silence and a collective intake of breath whenever Trump, with alarming frequency, went where no one wanted to go or would have dreamed of going. The reaction now was somewhere between gauging Trump’s being Trump, with everybody understanding that nine-tenths of what came out of his mouth was blah-blah and recognizing that here might be a hinge moment in history and that he really might be thinking he could delay the election. If the latter, then there was the urgent question of who needed now, right now, to go into the breach?

A reluctant Meadows did: “Mr. President, there isn’t any procedure for that. There would be no constitutional precedent or mechanism. The date is fixed. The first Tuesday…” Meadows’s sugary North Carolinian voice was tinged with panic.

“Uh-uh. But what about—?”

“I’m afraid—no, you can’t. We can’t.”

“I’m sure there might be a way, but … well…”

The next week, the president brought up delaying or avoiding or somehow bypassing the election again. This time at a debate prep session at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

These were more golf sessions than debate prep, and the president was in a relaxed mood. Indeed, aides had often thought he was at his most inane or dangerous at Bedminster, freely musing about the extent of his powers (it was in Bedminster that he made his “fire and fury” threat against North Korea).

Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and on-again, off-again Trump ally, was participating in the mock debate session, which was quickly digressing into the usual Trump rambles and monologues.

“I’m thinking about calling it off,” said Trump, as though without much thought.

“The prep?” said Christie.

“No, the election—too much virus.”

“Well, you can’t do that, man,” said Christie, a former U.S. attorney, half chuckling. “You do know, you can’t declare martial law.” Christie followed up: “You do know that, right?”

It was both alarming and awkward that he might not.

Trump’s preposterousness often combined with the possibility of his dead seriousness to create a moment in which embarrassment and crisis seemed indistinguishable.

He juggled the election in his mind not necessarily as a win or lose proposition. Rather, it was a roadblock or technicality to get around, like taxes or zoning regulations or refinancings, or some advantage the competition might employ unless he came up with a sharper countermove.