On Monday, President Donald Trump teased the world via Twitter with the potential of a normal, legal transition process. Trump lost the election more than two weeks ago, but has yet to formally acknowledge this loss. Monday’s tweets came close to convincing people that he may be ready to concede, but a series of baffling retweets Tuesday morning has turned that notion on its head.
Before most Americans were awake Tuesday morning, Trump retweeted two utterly bonkers Randy Quaid videos. The videos blasted Fox News—Trump’s favorite news network until they decided to take the massive risk of disagreeing with him—and opined about everything from George Soros and the election to climate change, big tech, and socialism.
Quaid, brother to the far more recognizable Dennis Quaid, has still starred in his fair share of films and television shows. The last several years have seen his filmography credits slow drastically, however, leaving his most recognizable credits in the last two decades as a side character in Brokeback Mountain and Mr. Briggs in Not Another Teen Movie.
With far less film work clogging up his free time, Quaid appears to have turned to absorbing conspiracy theories and posting strange online rantings. The two videos retweeted by Trump are among his most baffling creations, quickly veering into disconnected ramblings and oddly serious tirades.
The first of these videos, posted originally by Quaid on Oct. 12, begins with the bearded actor seating himself on a backwards chair. The following two minutes see Quaid performing an unsettlingly serious soliloquy about the slow death of America at the hands of “anarchists” and “godless fanatics.” It plays like the internal monologue of the titular killer in a psycho-thriller. The second video, originally posted a month later on Nov. 12, is more brief but just as baffling. It shows Quaid—inappropriately and uncomfortably close to the camera—ranting about Fox News. According to Quaid’s unhinged video, the network’s rating are plummeting. “They forgot what made them successful,” Quaid growls through a surreal, color-changing filter. “They forgot the golden goose. The only difference between the 2016 election and 2020 is Fox News.”
The videos, while bewildering, would likely exist as little more than a blip on most people’s radars, if not for the president’s retweet. By sharing Quaid’s ramblings on his own Twitter page, however, the president is prompting very real questions about the likelihood of his concession.
Because Trump also essentially retweeted Quaid saying he wouldn’t concede as well.
People were already concerned that Trump may refuse to leave office peacefully, but the president had signaled, of late, that he may actually follow the precedent of every previous American president. The sharing of Quaid’s videos again puts this question into limbo.
More election 2020 coverage
