"Don’t talk to me that way! You’re just a—you’re just a lightweight! ... I’m the president of the United States! Don’t ever talk to the president that way!”

Today at the White House, Trump had one of the saddest meltdowns you'll see by a public figure. /1 bit.ly/33kyGE1
Trump rejected the election:

"It was a rigged election, 100%."
"This election was a fraud."
"Joe Biden did not get 80 million votes."
"I got 74 million, but there were many ballots thrown away. So I got much more than that."
"At the highest level, it was a rigged election." /2
Trump claimed *millions* of votes were fraudulent:

"687,000 fraudulent votes cast in PA."
"I won [GA] by hundreds of thousands of votes."
"We have tens of thousands votes more than we need in all cases."
"You’re gonna find fraud of hundreds of thousands of votes per state." /3
The rant was full of demonstrable lies. Trump said GA's recount "found thousands of wrong votes ... always against me." (Wrong. Biden gained margin in 44 counties.)

He said "We’re doing very well in front of the states" in contesting the election. (He lost nearly every case.) /4
GA's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, voted for Trump but says there was no systemic fraud in GA. Today Trump said: "He’s an enemy of the people."

"I have no idea who he is," said Trump, after his aides asked Raffensperger to co-chair Trump's campaign in GA. /5
More desperate egotism: "The vaccines were me," Trump raged. "I pushed people harder than they’ve ever been pushed."

He bragged that he got "millions more [votes] than Ronald Reagan got" in 1984. Reagan won 59% of the vote and a bigger share of the population than Trump did. /6
This is sad and dangerous. Trump said friends told him there was no way he'd lose AZ. He said there's no way he could have lost PA, because Biden criticized fracking. Reality didn't turn out as Trump expected. So he's rejecting reality.

For 8 more weeks, he's our president. /END

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More from @saletan

2 Nov
This comparison of Monmouth's final PA polls shows how samples have been adjusted to avoid a 2016 surprise. 2016 weighting on left, 2020 on right.

Dems are down from +11 to +2. And education weighting is added to ensure 64% are non-college.

Biden leads anyway, by 5 to 7 points.
Links to the docs:

2016: monmouth.edu/polling-instit…

2020: monmouth.edu/polling-instit…

Search for "weight."

Kudos to @MonmouthPoll for publishing its methodology and crosstabs in such detail. Most pollsters don't.
Left: Siena poll of PA, late Oct. 2016.
Right: Siena poll of PA, late Oct. 2020.

Party ID in the sample went from D+5 to D+3.

Non-college went from 56% to 60%.

Gender shifted from 54-46 female to 52-47.

Clinton led 46-39. Biden, in the more difficult 2020 sample, led 49-43.
Read 4 tweets
31 Oct
Vote. If you do, Trump is gone. These numbers explain why.

1) Biden leads by 5 in PA. He leads by 8 to 9 in MI and WI. That’s bigger than Clinton's leads at this point.

Even if Trump gets the same surge he got in 2016 in those states, Biden wins them. bit.ly/2GihLtI
2) In 2016, Trump did NOT surge in FL, GA, or AZ. His margin ended up just the same as the margin in polls four days before the election.

Biden is leading those states by 2.1, 1.6, and 3.1. He doesn't have to win them. But if he gets one, that's insurance in case he loses PA.
3) Unlike Clinton, Biden is above 50% in MI, WI, and PA. Trump can't just pick up undecideds. He has to take vote share from Biden.

Biden is also closer to 50% in FL, NC, GA, and AZ than Clinton was. He has an extra 2.5 points in those states, on average. bit.ly/2GihLtI
Read 4 tweets
25 Oct
Excerpts of @MarkMeadows' jaw-dropping CNN interview:

1) He says WH is focused on limiting deaths, not spread. "We’re not going to control the pandemic," he says. "What we need to do is make sure that we have... vaccines or treatments to make sure that people don’t die" from it.
2) @MarkMeadows derides Biden for promoting masks: “This president is leading, while Joe Biden is sitting there suggesting that we’re going to mandate masks.”

”What is Joe Biden’s plan for the pandemic?” Meadows asks later. ”He’s going to wear two masks, like he does every day?”
3) Meadows argues that masks aren't "the answer," since experts admit they wouldn't make schools perfectly safe.

He suggests mask science is dubious because WH virus officials Fauci and Birx, "the people you like to tout," changed their views. (They now strongly urge mask use.)
Read 6 tweets
24 Oct
2020 is not 2016. To come back and win, Trump would need a far greater miracle than he got last time.

This thread shows surveys from 5 key states. Same pollsters, similar time frame, 2020 vs. 2016. Look at Biden’s numbers compared to Clinton’s. He's polling significantly higher.
Pennsylvania:

Muhlenberg
Oct. 20-26, 2016: Clinton 45, Trump 39
Oct. 13-20, 2020: Biden 51, Trump 44

Quinnipiac
Oct. 10-16, 2016: Clinton 47, Trump 41
Oct. 16-19, 2020: Biden 51, Trump 43

Monmouth
Sep 30-Oct 3, 2016: Clinton 50, Trump 40
Sep 30-Oct 4, 2020: Biden 53, Trump 45
Michigan:

Ipsos
Oct. 14-20, 2016: Clinton 45, Trump 41
Oct. 14-20, 2020: Biden 51, Trump 44

Epic-MRA
Oct. 22-24, 2016: Clinton 41, Trump 34
Oct. 15-19, 2020: Biden 48, Trump 39

Glengariff Group
Oct. 10-11, 2016: Clinton 42, Trump 31
Sept. 30-Oct. 3, 2020: Biden 48, Trump 39
Read 7 tweets
19 Oct
This WP investigation, based on inside reporting, finds that Trump and like-minded advisers — in particular, Scott Atlas — have abandoned the war on the virus. They've decided to accept mass infection, and they've undercut measures to stop the spread. /1 wapo.st/3dMuQb2
Atlas is undermining preventive measures. He dismisses masks and social distancing as meaningless. Two days ago, he publicly rejected the idea that "masks work." He says all restrictions on activity should be lifted except for the highest-risk groups. /2 wapo.st/3dMuQb2
Atlas has blocked efforts to test the general population. As a result, money allocated by Congress for testing is going unspent. That's one reason why people can't get fast test results. It also impedes the government's ability to monitor the spread. /3 wapo.st/3dMuQb2
Read 7 tweets
26 Sep
This week, Trump was asked whether lives could have been saved if the country had shut down 2 or 3 weeks earlier.

“Nobody really thought to do that,” he said.

Actually, someone did. Trump threatened to fire her, and he opposed the idea for 3 fatal weeks. bit.ly/335H6zI
On Sept. 15, Trump denied that early on, he was "downplaying ... the severity of the crisis."

“Not downplaying," he protested. "I didn’t downplay it.”

He's literally on tape telling Bob Woodward in March: “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down.”
“You were ... praising President Xi," said Stephanopoulos. "You were saying he was transparent" and "was doing a good job.”

“No. I didn’t say one way or the other," Trump insisted.

In Jan & Feb, Trump literally praised Xi's "transparency" and said "He's doing a very good job.”
Read 7 tweets

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