What did Donald Trump do today?
He said bad news was fake news.
The "Fake Polls" he's talking about are the ones his own campaign leaked last week, apparently in an effort to get him to take seriously how far behind he is. (Trump, 73, is reportedly exhausted by the campaign events that once energized him.)
The leaked polls from March show him trailing Joe Biden by wide margins in almost every one of 17 swing states surveyed. Trump's campaign admitted the polls existed (but disputed their meaning) even as Trump himself was insisting there were no such polls. Then, this weekend, Trump fired the polling firm that gave him the bad news.
In other words, Trump is calling his own polling "fake," to the extent that he's admitting it exists.
Trump lashed out at Fox News, which is normally sort of a psychological safe space for him, because of a poll they released yesterday showing him losing to each of the top five Democratic candidates, by margins up to 10%.
Trump's overall approval rating remains at about 40%. He hinted on Sunday that he thinks there will be a popular uprising to keep him in office longer than the Constitution allows.
Who cares?
- Pretending bad news doesn't exist doesn't make it go away.
- Neither does shooting the messenger.
- It's wrong to lie to the American people, especially after you've been caught.
- In a democracy, leaders don't fantasize about clinging to power no matter what.