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It seemed like a desperate last stand from a fearful strongman who can feel himself inexorably escape.
The US president returned to the White House meeting room on Thursday, the scene of past triumphs such as that time he proposed bleach as a cure for the coronavirus and that time he condemned QAnon with the words “You like me.”
Trump offered a downright dangerous and dishonest version of this week’s election that current vote counting trends suggest he will lose. Possibly it was an attempt to intimidate and dissuade the television networks from declaring a winner in the next few hours.
Too he ran the risk of inciting protests and violence from supporters encouraged to view Joe Biden as an illegitimate elected president.
Grim and pessimistic, Trump made false claims from a prepared statement (is that better or worse than improvised lies?)
“If you count the legal votes, I win easily,” he said seriously. “If they count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us. If you count the votes that were late, we are analyzing them very carefully, many votes were late. “
It was a bold and dramatic claim with massive and absolutely baseless implications.
Having often dismissed the significance of Vladmir Putin’s hackers’ meddling four years ago, Trump hinted that opinion polls are a more sinister threat.
“The media polls were electoral interference, in the true sense of the word, by powerful special interests,” he said. “These really bogus polls… were designed to keep our voters at home, create the illusion of momentum for Biden, and diminish the ability of Republicans to raise funds. They were what are called suppression polls. “
Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, tweeted: “This is just extraordinary. It is a lie every 5 seconds. They are not small lies either. Just nuclear grade nonsense. “
The president continued to launch racism in good measure, targeting Philadelphia and Detroit, both majority African-American cities on the battlefields of Pennsylvania and Michigan, respectively.
“They are trying to manipulate an election and we cannot allow that to happen,” he said. “Detroit and Philadelphia, known as two of the most corrupt political places in our country.”
The man who, during his career in property development, perfected the dark art of “truthful hyperbole” sounded a totally unreal note. “We believe that we will win the elections very easily.
“We think there is going to be a lot of litigation because we have so much evidence, so much proof, and it may end up in the highest court in the country … We cannot allow an election like this to be stolen from us.”
In a circular argument, he claimed that he had predicted this debacle all along: in fact, his old lies were proof of the new. Gesturing to the press, he said: “I have been talking about this for many months with all of you and I have told you very strongly that the mail-in ballots are going to be a disaster … We are hearing stories that are horror stories.”
He finished after 16 minutes and walked from the podium, ignoring a loud barrage of questions. For the simplest of all, “where is the evidence?” Clearly had no answer.
No one can accuse Trump of not living up to the big occasion. This was an unprecedented performance by the liar-in-chief. Daniel Dale, a fact-checker at CNN, wrote on Twitter: “I have read or seen all of Trump’s speeches since 2016. This is the most dishonest speech he has ever given.”
Perhaps the false claims of fraud will eventually allow Trump to quietly get away while keeping up appearances, claiming he would have won re-election had it not been for misleading establishment forces beyond his control.
He used to promise his followers: “We will win so much, you will be sick and tired of winning.” Not half of what is unable to contemplate the reality of losing.
