While some recent movement in the polls shows the presidential race tightening in the battleground states, there’s no denying that President Trump is far from assured a second term at this point and he has plenty of work in front of him between now and November. And if the pandemic keeps the economy in the dumps across much of the nation and the employment numbers don’t start bouncing back, that could be a tough job indeed. But does the President have a Trump card (pardon the pun) up his sleeve in that event?

Over at Medium, Bryce Zabel raises this interesting question. What might Donald Trump do if it looks like he’s actually going to lose to Joe Biden? Bryce suggests in all seriousness that Trump just might “play the wildest card in all of human history.” And what card is that? He could tip over the entire applecart by emptying the bag and telling America everything that’s known about UFO study programs and, just possibly, the presence of extraterrestrial life on Earth, either now or in the past.

We all know that Donald Trump is just crazy enough to do it.

And by “do it,” we mean throw the entire UFO issue into the upcoming presidential election at the last minute in a wild attempt to deflect, distract and scare enough people to win the election.

That’s right. Unidentified flying objects dumped smack into the middle of a presidential election by a sitting president who actually loves the idea of how disruptive it could be.

It sounds crazy. It’s not going to happen. Right? I mean, right?

Even Bryce admits this is a long shot, but it’s not off the table. He notes, as we have discussed recently, that UFOs have become a legitimate subject for news coverage and there’s been a lot of it recently. In addition to multiple articles in the New York Times, CNN has done two segments on the subject this week alone, with both Jake Tapper and Michael Smerconish. NBC News just published an opinion piece on the subject of both UFOs and the possibility of extraterrestrial life visiting Earth (which I’ll have more to say about this week), something unheard of for them for quite some time. This is something that’s happening right before all of our eyes.

You Might Like

So with that in mind, would the President throw this wildcard on the table in October in an attempt to shore up his reelection chances? And if so, would it work?

Bryce argues that we know a couple of things about this President by now that are hard to deny. One is that he’s a disruptor who cares not one bit for traditional political rules. He’s heard of the “norms of politics” but has no interest in them. And second, he’s a showman by nature who is very media savvy and knows how to play the press. He’s well aware that every time he’s mentioned the subject of UFOs (and he’s done it several times now) he generates massive headlines. And even MSNBC can’t come up with a way to blame an alien invasion on him. (But if we give Chris Hayes enough time he’ll come up with something, I’m sure.)

When might this happen? Zabel speculates that the President might decide to empty the bag right in the middle of the final debate on October 22nd. Personally, I think that’s a bit late in the game, particularly if the poll numbers continue to go south for him. But the “when” isn’t nearly as important as the “what” in this case.

There’s the real $64,000 question. What, if anything, does Donald Trump know about UFOs, aliens or all the rest that he could let us all in on? As I’ve argued here repeatedly (and Bryce gives a nod to this idea as well), I highly doubt that the people in the most secretive intelligence chimneys who know anything huge about such things (assuming such information exists) tell Donald Trump or any other president much of anything. Presidents come and go. The military-industrial complex is dug in like bedrock.

But that doesn’t mean that Trump doesn’t know anything about it. He’s hinted that he knows some things about Roswell that he found “very interesting.” And he said he would “think about” disclosing some of what he knows. Shouldn’t we take him at his word? I understand this sounds crazy, but I think there’s a non-zero percent chance that he would do it if he thought it would carry him over the finish line on November 3rd.

But would that do the trick? My crystal ball has gone completely dark on that question. It would be a massively disruptive, potentially world-changing moment if he really had any huge news to break. Whether or not that would sway any persuadable voters to come back to his side is another matter. And what would Joe Biden say in response? Nobody would have prepped him for this question. I suppose he might try to piggyback off Trump’s announcement and say that would also be the disclosure president. But to be honest, even that wouldn’t be enough to get me to vote for Uncle Joe.