Hannity, who has long been one of Trump’s most arrogant backers, always offers a nice bar for the president to unleash on his perceived enemies while showing off his claimed achievements. Thursday night it was no different.
Below are the lines you should see from the interview.
1. “I saw something, not that much, but I saw something.”
“And you talk about suburbs. You know, we’re all talking about suburban women. The fact is, they really want to support me because we’re for law and order.
“He has not answered a question since July 17 and 17 and 27. I mean, he has not answered a reporter’s question for a long time.”
4. “Something happens. And I suppose we can find out sooner, sooner rather than later. I hope. But something happens. It’s very strange.”
In which Trump suggests that “something” (presumably bad) is going on with Biden, but does not really offer a sense of what that might be. This is intentional. He wants to plant a seed of doubt that “something” is wrong with Biden without actually providing high kinds of hard facts to make it happen.
5. “It’s like chess masters, and if you are not a great chess master, you will have a problem. And we do not think he is.”
That, Trump says he’s a great chess master, then?
“He wants to take it away. They will consider your second amendment without question. That’s like, without question.”
7. “But the biggest headwind – and that’s during the pandemic, which I hope will get closer the last turn.”
Yes, cases are down. But there is no medical expert I have suggested that we are “the last turn” with the virus.
“And, you know, they’re having a hard time in California, as you know, even though he’s treated me very kindly, that’s why I’ll treat him very kindly.”
This is vintage Trump. California has a hard time dealing with Covid-19, but Trump will not hurt Democratic Govin Newsom because Newsom has said all sorts of nice things about him.
9. “Republicans are doing very well. Republican states are doing great. You’re watching what’s going on, they’re doing great.”
10. “They send out 51 million ballot papers to people who do not ask for them.”
This is not true. What is sent out are ballot box in mail request, no emails.
11. “Well, absenteeism is great. I used one for Florida. And a lot of people use absenteeism – a lot of people in Florida use it.”
12. “But they want to send what’s called mail-in, universal mail-in-votes. Fifty-one million votes are sent to who knows who? I mean, you know, where are they going?”
Again, these are not applications like moods. When people apply, their suitability and identity is checked and confirmed.
13. “This will be the biggest scam in history. This will be the most fraudulent election in history.”
How can anyone, given this kind of rhetoric, think that Trump would convince himself if he lost to Biden in the fall? “The most fraudulent election in history” ????
14. “A lot of them will be dead. A lot of them will get more than one. But it’s going to be a very terrible thing. It’s just a terrible, terrible thing.”
Just to make this point again: What is being postponed are post-in-vote applications. Not emails. If a person is dead and returns a mail-in voting application, then a) wow and b) then they would have their qualification to vote checked – and not checked.
15. “I mean, that thing was wrapped up for weeks and weeks, and they just declared themselves a winner, but they have no idea where the votes are, where the ballots are. It’s gone.”
16. “It’s a terrible thing. It’s a fraudulent election. Everyone knows it.”
If he says this 74 days before the election, what will he say the day before? Or, even more frighteningly, the day after?
17. “You don’t even have to know politics to know it – 51 million ballots will be irresponsibly sent out to people who do not agree to ask them, people who say, ‘Hey, I just got a vote. That’s great. Let me vote. “
Ballot application. And if these people said “that’s great … let me vote,” well, that would be a good thing, right? Since more people participating in a democracy is a good thing? Especially since their liveability and voting ability would be checked before the vote is counted?
18. “And it’s a – it’s a terrible thing. They’re trying to steal the election.”
Considering that in the wake of his 2016 victory, Trump said – without proof – that 3 to 5 million illegal votes were cast. He said this to explain the fact that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million votes. And he could never, ever offer evidence to substantiate such a massive claim.
19. “We will have sheriffs and we will enforce law and we will hopefully have, American lawyers, and we will have everyone, and generals of lawyers. But it is very difficult.”
In which the President of the United States says he intends to use sheriffs and other law enforcement personnel to control the polling stations. In fact, it is not at all clear that Trump has the authority to actually do that.
20. “Carolyn Maloney, who should not be able to accept the position, in fact. I mean, they gave – they declare themselves as a winner over a man who is currently looking to say, what happened? He thought he won. She declared herself a winner. “
Again, no. The count lasted too long, no doubt. But Maloney beat Suraj Patel by just under 4,000 votes.
21. “No, you will not have it – you can not have it – it is impossible to have an honest election like this.”
“Impossible.”
22. “Yeah, I think we have more of it than live than what they did. I find it pretty boring when you do bands. I’ll go live and do mine live.”
A good reminder that Trump – here talking about the two party conventions – is at heart a TV executive. And TV executives love live TV.
23. “And then she had certain numbers wrong, certain very interesting numbers were gone.”
24. “Well, he has not answered a question since mid-July, is what they reported last night.”
Again, no. See no. 3.
25. “And some of the answers he read from a teleprompter. That means he knows what the question is. And he reads an answer from the teleprompter. That something’s happening. And it’s not fair to our country. “
To be clear what Trump is claiming here: He says Biden has questions from reporters beforehand and reads pre-written answers from a teleprompter. I have not seen any evidence of that and NO serious journalist would agree to show a politician their questions in advance.
26. “We had the largest economy in the history of any country.”
27. “And now we want to open up and the Democrats need to open up their states and cities and they need to open up the schools and let’s play football.”
This was all one sentence.
28. “This country has done a fantastic job. We have done a fantastic job.”
29. “We’re doing well. We’re doing well. We’ve been hit by this China plague. But other than that. I mean, we’re rocking. And now we’ll rock again very, very soon.”
Yes, this feels like a good place to end.
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