U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was going into isolation.

Trump has mild symptoms, according to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. But the diagnosis, less than five weeks before the Nov. 3 election, has raised questions about what happens if a presidential candidate or the president-elect dies or becomes incapacitated.

Here’s how U.S. law and party rules address those scenarios.

Can the Nov. 3 election be postponed?

Yes, but that is very unlikely to happen. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to determine the election date. Under U.S. law, the election takes place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, every four years.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives would almost certainly object to delaying the election, even if the Republican-controlled Senate voted to do so. The presidential election has never been postponed.

What happens if a candidate dies ahead of the election?

Both the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee have rules that call for their members to vote on a replacement nominee. However, it is likely too late to replace a candidate in time for the election.

Early voting is underway, with more than 2.2 million votes cast, according to the U.S. Elections Project at the University of Florida. The deadline to change ballots in many states has also passed; mail ballots, which are expected to be widely used due to the coronavirus pandemic, have been sent to voters in two dozen states.

Unless Congress delays the election, voters would still choose between the Republican Trump and Democrat Joe Biden even if one died before Nov. 3. If the winner is deceased, however, a new set of questions emerges.

What happens if a candidate dies before the Electoral College votes?

Under the Electoral College system, the winner of the election is determined by securing a majority of “electoral votes” allotted to the 50 states and the District of Columbia in proportion to their population.

The Electoral College’s electors will meet on Dec. 14 to vote for president. The winner must receive at least 270 of the 538 total Electoral College votes.

Each state’s electoral votes typically go to the winner of the state’s popular vote. Some states allow electors to vote for anyone they choose, but more than half of the states bind electors to cast their votes for the winner.

Most state laws that bind electors do not contemplate what to do if a candidate dies. Michigan’s law requires electors to vote for the winning candidates who appeared on the ballot. Indiana law, by contrast, states that electors should switch to a party’s replacement if the candidate has died.

In the event of a candidate’s death, the opposing party might challenge in court whether bound electors should be allowed to vote for a replacement, said Lara Brown, the director of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.

“The most interesting question is really going to be, how will the Supreme Court handle a controversy like this?” she said.

But Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School, said he viewed it as unlikely that a party would try to defy the will of voters if it was clear a particular candidate won the election.

What if a winner dies after the Electoral College has voted, but before Congress has certified the vote?

After the Electoral College votes, Congress must still convene on Jan. 6 to certify the results. If a presidential candidate won a majority of electoral votes and then died, it is not entirely clear how Congress would resolve the situation.

The Constitution’s 20th Amendment says the vice president-elect becomes president if the president-elect dies before Inauguration Day. But it’s an open legal question whether a candidate formally becomes the “president-elect” after winning the Electoral College vote, or only after Congress certifies the count.

If Congress rejected votes for a deceased candidate and therefore found no one had won a majority, it is up to the House of Representatives to pick the next president, choosing from among the top three electoral vote-getters.

Each state delegation gets one vote, which means that even though Democrats have a majority, Republicans currently hold the advantage in a contingent election, as they control 26 of 50 state delegations. All 435 House seats are up for election in November, so the makeup of the next Congress is still unknown.

No winning candidate has ever died after the election but before inauguration. The closest instance came in 1872, when Horace Greeley died on Nov. 29, weeks after losing the election to Ulysses Grant. The 66 electoral votes that Greeley earned ended up largely split among his running mate and other minor candidates.

What happens if a president-elect dies or becomes incapacitated after Congress has certified the result?

Under the U.S. Constitution, a president-elect is sworn in on Jan. 20, Inauguration Day, two weeks after Congress certifies the result. If the president-elect died, the vice president-elect would be sworn in on Jan. 20.

Joe Biden has spent nearly 50 years on the political stage. In that time, he has repeatedly proven that he is no ally to Israel. The Biden platform is a delicate balance of establishment Democratic talk points when it comes to Israel. It is rare you get a candidate with this extensive of a political record; it would be criminal to ignore it.

American voters must look past the campaign and focus on Biden’s time in the Senate and as vice president.  In 1982, prime minister Menachem Begin testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Then-senator Biden told Begin that US aid to Israel could be cut off if actions in the West Bank did not cease. 

Begin responded, “Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.” Biden slammed on the dais, clearly angry with what Begin was saying.

Begin continued, “This desk is designed for writing, not for fists. Don’t threaten us with slashing aid. Do you think that because the US lends us money it is entitled to impose on us what we must do? We are grateful for the assistance we have received, but we are not to be threatened. I am a proud Jew. Three-thousand years of culture are behind me, and you will not frighten me with threats. Take note: we do not want a single soldier of yours to die for us.”  

All American Jews and those claiming to be allies of Israel should know of this exchange. When Biden states he will not threaten Israeli aid, this moment should be brought up every time. To those who wish to ignore this hearing due to its age, you do not get to choose when Biden’s career began. Biden was already in his second term in the Senate when he attacked Begin. He was not ignorant of the issue; he was a senator in 1973 when Richard Nixon green-lighted Operation Nickel Grass to helped Israel in the Yom Kippur War.  

Biden’s career as vice president was not any better for Israel. The Obama administration oversaw the lowest point in the US-Israel relations since Israel’s establishment in 1948. Biden was party to regular leaks of Israeli intelligence and political attacks targeting Israel on the global stage. In 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the US to mend relations. The prime minister was taken in and out of the White House through a side door with no official media related to the visit. 

Biden also worked to pass the Iran nuclear deal, which Israel heavily opposed. There are reports that in a 2014 meeting, Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli fighter jets should they target facilities in Iran.

Biden does not get to run on the Obama-Biden record and play coy to these events. It is no coincidence that a month before Netanyahu addressed the House of Representatives, the Obama administration decided to declassify a 386-page report on Israeli nuclear capabilities. The report left details on France, Italy and other NATO nations’ programs blacked out.

During Netanyahu’s stay in Washington to address Congress, the White House declined to meet with Netanyahu. The White House claimed this was standard policy due to Netanyahu nearing an election. During the same period, Biden and secretary of state John Kerry traveled to Munich to meet with Labor leader Isaac Herzog, Netanyahu’s opponent in the election. 

To paint a clear picture of how Biden sees Israel, he once gave a speech on how Israel was damaging peace negotiations in the region hours after a terrorist killed 21 people in a Jerusalem bus bombing. Biden views Israel as a prop; he has no real care for the country or its security. If he did care, he would not have sat by as the Obama administration pursued policies the Israelis warned would put their safety in danger. 

We should reject Biden’s rhetoric and look at his record. With nearly 50 years to reflect on, Biden does not get to tell us what a Biden administration would look like; we have already seen it.

Judah Waxelbaum is the western regional vice chair for the College Republican National Committee. He tweets under @JudahWaxelbaum.

The key question here, above all, is why should an American citizen care about the Middle East and North Africa in the first place?

Well, there is one overwhelming reason, which is that what happens in the Middle East must reflect negatively or positively on the American citizen, whether from the political, economic or military side, and even from the angle of the continuity of the United States as the leader of the new world.

Open Market

The world is crowded with all types of goods from different countries of the world, and the United States needs to increase the commercial market for its various goods, and this is necessary in order to sustain the stability of the US economy and generate jobs. The Middle East and North Africa is a developing market and it is still for a long time to come, capable of expanding, importing and producing a lot.

Energy and Oil

Although the world is experiencing an abundance of global fossil energy production resources, the United States needs to maintain the stability of its influence in the Middle East, which accounts for approximately 69% of global oil production, according to announced estimates.  Although the United States’ share in oil production has increased and its dependence on imports decreased, this will never be sufficient to ensure American economic stability. In light of the free market strategy on which the United States relies radically, ensuring the stability of the oil market depends mainly on the production of the Middle East.

International Strategy

With regard to conflict and strategic competition with China and other major poles, the stability of the United States’ influence on energy sources in the Middle East and North Africa is essential.

Security

Terrorism represents one of the major dangers threatening the United States and the world, and it is the main threat in the Middle East, where the theocratic Iranian regime officially adopts terrorism, and Tehran is a meeting point and the backbone of all terrorist organizations such as Hezbollat, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Nusra Front.

What gave Al-Qaeda the appropriate opportunity to carry out the 9/11 terrorist attacks was the extensive logistical support it received from Iran through a mutual commitment by two parties not to attack one another, and Iran’s hosting of leading elements of Al-Qaeda.

Why Democrats Should Not Win November 2020?

The United States represents the greatest power globally, and regardless of some other powers that are trying to compete the United States influence in the world and the Middle East, the United States still has the power to sustain its influence.

The ability of the United States to sustain its global influence has not been based on just the military power but through its ability to make deals and mutual understandings with all power globally, especially in the Middle East. For a century, the United States has been following a strategy that respects the essence of coexistence regardless of some errors that are widely controversial at the US and international level. Generally, both Republicans and Democrats have been following this strategy (Live and let others live).

Obama and Far Left

Before that day, everything related to Barak Obama was an American domestic affair for the Middle East and North Africa. 10 February 2007, was an ominous, the day Obama has announced his candidacy to the White House. It’s similar to the day the Iranian Anti-Islam leader, Shiite mullah Khomenei, the supreme leader of (IRGC) landed in Tehran coming from Paris on an Air France jet, 1 February 1979. 

2009 June 4, Obama as a US President gave his famous speech at Cairo University in Egypt, directing his speech to the Islamic world, especially the Middle East and North Africa.  The peoples of the Middle East and North Africa had no clue that that famous smile and flowery words of a honeyed flavor promising progress, prosperity and peace, were hiding the most evil figure ever, similar to Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini, but in the most deceptive way. Obama was a successful project of chaos. The famous Cairo speech was a prelude to the most sinister plans the region had ever faced.

Although the term “Creative Chaos” was known to elites around the world as a theoretical concept, Obama was professionally leading the Devil’s Orchestra, as Democrats began implementing on the ground in the Middle East and North Africa. The opportunity was perfect for Satan’s right hand to shake left one.

Iran (IRGC) Destabilising the Middle East

March 2, 2009, in response to Obama’s initiative, “Khamenei did not see a real change in Washington’s policy towards his country,” despite the US President Barack Obama’s pledge to a new beginning for relations with Tehran, adding that “changing the tone is not enough. Rather, the United States must implement what it calls for on the ground”.  The steps taken by the Obama administration to ease pressure and get out of his way to appease the Iranian regime the agents of choas in the Middle East at the time threw the Middle East into choas and emboldened Qatari and Turkish regime’s chaotic agendas in the region, while cementing Iranian influences in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.  “Our people do not accept a proposal of negotiation. You can not talk to us like this”, Khamenei’s response.

To enhance the chances of threatening American influence in the region and tarnishing the reputation and prestige of the United States, the Iranian regime (IRGC) launched a series of insulting statements and actions against the world’s superpower, indifferent to any reaction from Washington.  The American response via US presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs was “a full evaluation will be needed with our policies, there are other initiatives”. Obama and the Democrats have shown US policy against Iranian policy as if they represent a republic of a small and marginal state on the world map, and the extreme weakness to the Iranians was strikingly provocative.

The United States has faced a continuous series of humiliating Iranian (IRGC) provocations that violate international law and human rights, that have been causing thousands of victims of American citizens and citizens of the Middle East and North Africa since 1979. Yet, Democrats humiliatedly continued to give the Iranians big rewards, not the last of which was surrender to the Iranians and handing Iraq over free of charge to the Iranians (IRGC) by announcing the withdrawal. Well, the withdrawal in and of itself was not the issue as it was a deserving desire of many American voters, but the withdrawal was through a refusal to cooperate and coordinate with the US allies in the region such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan, all of these countries have been key allies of the US in the Middle East.

Since January 2009, the Democratic administration headed by Obama began a broad campaign of pressures against the governments around the Middle East and North Africa, political, economic and military.  It was a highly stupid plan. While the Iranian regime (IRGC), the most aggressive since the end of the Cold War, was being rewarded, excessive pressures were exerted on the governments of the region, which were mostly peaceful and desirous of peace, by aggressive means to impose Obama’s version of democracy on the peoples of the region.

The Middle East today became full of extremely dangerous terrorist militias affiliated with (IRGC) where the region has been seriously threatened by Al Qaeda and ISIS, who have been generated by the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood and trained by (IRGC).

On April 2, 2015, the completion of the nuclear deal was announced, which is considered the largest reward in history that a superpower at the height of its greatness offered to the enemy. The largest reward not only for the Iranian regime (IRGC), but was also a great reward for all competitors and adversaries of the United States such as China, Russia, Europe and all the spectrum of extremist groups around the world.

Betraying the US Allies in the name of “the Arab Spring”

The so-called “Arab Spring” was the lowest point in the curve of the US wisdom of policies. The governments allied with the United States or were more liberal in cooperation with the United States, were replaced with extremist religious governments and militias in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen. New problems were created to threaten American interests instead of dealing with one, which is the Iranian regime (IRGC).  It empowered the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood, other extremist religious organizations and far left revolutionary parties in the region that have been in consistent with the revolutionary vision of (IRGC) regarding the rejection of peace, and the rejection of coexistence, and the insistence on hostility toward the peoples of the region and toward the United States. Well, 22 new cases were a candidate to be new (IRGC) had the Obama project succeeded completely in the region.

Incredibly, the opportunity of such enormous planning and support (Creative Chaos), that could have directed to topple the Iranian regime (IRGC) to support the US allies inside Iran during the Green Revolution that erupted on 12 June 2009, was completely ignored. Instead, the policies of the Democrats administration was hostile to the US allies throughout the region.

The Fruits Of Obama’s Plan

The result of Democrats policies was a huge wide disaster. Other than further increase spread of Al Qaeda, ISIS and other militias affiliated with (IRGC), the Democrats caused civil wars, massacres, and complete or partial failure of the states, which caused millions of victims, dead, wounded, displaced and refugees throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The numbers of economic losses from this gruesome catastrophe similar to the holocaust reached a trillion dollar. Dramatically, threats against global energy sources have increased and the Middle East and North Africa became more complex than were originally complicated. Unfortunately you can see that on the map, as mere red-hot spots.

Growing Russian Influence In The Middle East

Iraq and Yemen were handed over to the (IRGC) the Russian-ally. Syria was handed over to the Russians and the (IRGC), and Ukraine was handed over to the Russians and Libya has been in the way. Those countries that have already engaged in understandings with the United States and were close to the US strategy have been smashed in favor of Russia.

Enable the Enemies of the United States

All that the Democrats have done was hand over the region to the powers of chaos instead of consolidating the US influence with the allies.  In addition to the increasing of terrorist groups, the matter has come to increase the threats against the main allies of the United States in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia and Israel), as (IRGC) tide reached the borders of Israel, and Saudi Arabia and the threats became greater than ever, leading (IRGC) obtaining outlets on the Red Sea, the Strait of Bab Al-Mandab and Mediterranean coasts.

The American People

I am confident that the American people are intelligent and peace-loving, but they have been subjected to the greatest operation of deception, concealment of information and the most dangerous exploitation of their economic and security concerns.

Historical Evidence: Desert Storm

Surprisingly, there is evidence that good cooperation and coordination between the United States and its allies is fruitful, cost-effective, and far away less costly.  The liberation of Kuwait from the Iraqi invasion in Desert Storm was an ideal coalition of what the United States could do and apply at its administration of the world.

The American-Saudi regional, and global understanding was deep on all levels, as military operations were launched on 16 January 1991 and ended with complete success on 27 February 1991. The coalition’s human direct losses were only 190, among – nearly – one million troops.  This war did not burden the American taxpayer, as the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, Germany and South Korea bore most of the costs of this war, which costed nearly 61 Billion USD.  It was a smashing success.  Well, this is how the results of the fine-tuned good work should be supposedly. 

Wake Up Call: Donald Tump

The nomination of the US President Donald Trump on June 16, 2015 was a milestone in modern American history, and then his election victory was a staggering for political institutions, media and study centers in the United States.  Well, the Americans have decided to take the lead.  Trump was able to smoothly establish a new era internationally by opening up to the Islamic world forcefully through realistic and open understandings, which greatly enhanced positive communication between Americans and Muslim peoples, especially with the Saudis where the Saudis represent the centre of the Islamic world religiously and economically.

President Trump has done exactly what a leader of a superpower is supposed to do.  Restoring American prestige, holding global religious reconciliation, counter terrorism decisively, restoring strong influence in the Middle East and North Africa, more pressure and chances for China to respect the US leadership, securing more energy sources.

Objectively, I can affirm that the chances for peace, prosperity, and more cooperation with the United States and respect for its global leadership role have been decisively enhanced thanks to Donald Trump.

Turkei Al-Owerde is Editor-in-Chief and Political Analyst of the Herald Report. His knowledge of the religious undertones of most Muslim Terrorist Organizations makes his many “conflict analysis” a valuable source of information for many security experts from around the world. He regularly tweets under @Turki_AlOwerde.