The claim comes in a report in the president’s favourite news outlet that cites a number of GOP insiders who are concerned about Mr Trump’s re-election prospects amid abysmal polling numbers.
Crucially, Mr Trump has lost support from older white voters — typically a bedrock of support for the Republican Party and a group that was crucial to his narrow 2016 victory. Mr Trump is also trailing the former vice president in almost all the swing states.
“It’s too early, but if the polls continue to worsen, you can see a scenario where he drops out,” one anonymous GOP operative told Fox News.
Another of the GOP sources cited in the report said of the likelihood that Mr Trump will drop out: “I’ve heard the talk but I doubt it’s true. My bet is, he drops if he believes there’s no way to win.”
Mr Trump has repeatedly hit out at polling that shows him far behind Mr Biden. Last month, he tweeted that Fox News “should fire their Fake Pollster. Never had a good Fox Poll!”
On Monday, he tweeted: "Sorry to inform the Do Nothing Democrats, but I am getting VERY GOOD internal Polling Numbers. Just like 2016, the @nytimes Polls are Fake! The @FoxNews Polls are a JOKE! Do you think they will apologize to me & their subscribers AGAIN when I WIN? People want LAW, ORDER & SAFETY!"
But polls from all polling organisations show Mr Trump consistently behind by similar margins. In particular, they have shown high levels of disapproval over the president’s handling of the coronavirus and mass protests calling for racial justice after the police killing of George Floyd.
Trump strategically stretches truth to
manipulate media, former adviser says
| June 23, 2020
President Trump
routinely, strategically exaggerates his achievements and stretches the truth
to manipulate the media, according to a former adviser.
Some examples of
Trump's intentional exaggerations: inflating the
GDP growth numbers in 2018, overstating the magnitude of drug price declines under his watch,
falsely suggesting that all Democrats want to outlaw private health insurance,
and claiming that he's the best president ever for African Americans.
“[Trump] began with a
now-familiar strategy for getting the press to cover a new fact, which is to
exaggerate it so that the press might enjoy correcting him and unwittingly
disseminate the intended finding,” said Casey Mulligan, who served as the chief
economist of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers from 2018 to 2019.
“The president’s gamble
is that voters aware of his successes on substance will tolerate his
eccentricities and improprieties in form,” said Mulligan, who lays out the case
in detail in his forthcoming tell-all book, You’re Hired!: Untold
Successes and Failures of a Populist President.
One part of Trump’s
tenure that he’s particularly proud of is economic growth. The economy had
grown 3.1% over the four quarters of 2018, which had not happened in one
calendar year since 2005.
Although having
the highest
economic growth rate in 14 years based on the annual calendar was
significant, Mulligan said, Trump nevertheless complained that the
accomplishment was “not getting fair coverage.” Trump decided to put a tweet
out to get more attention.
“POTUS asked whether
the tweet should say that it was the fastest growth in 20 years. Or 50? What would
be the sweet exaggeration spot that would get media attention?” Trump said in a
private conversation with his economic advisers in 2019, according to
Mulligan’s book.
Trump went on to cite
the exaggerated GDP growth
numbers during some Trump rallies, Mulligan said.
Mulligan explained in
the book that, on many occasions, Trump would first report or tweet the numbers
given to him by advisers with “100 percent precision.” Later, though, he would
embellish the claims after consulting with his communications team, primarily
social media chief Dan Scavino and senior adviser and speechwriter Stephen
Miller, gauging “whether the coverage needed exaggeration."
When it came to the
Trump administration’s success in reducing the cost of prescription drugs in
2018, once again, the president started off quoting accurate numbers but then
slipped into exaggerations when insufficient attention was given to the
accomplishment, according to Mulligan.
Initially, Trump said drug prices in
2018 had dropped for “the first time in nearly half a century.” This was
accurate.
Just 12 days after the
new drug price data had been released, however, Trump was frustrated that the
press were not talking about it and began exaggerating during a White House
Cabinet meeting at which the press were present, claiming that drug prices had
declined for the “first time in over 50 years.” An hour later, at another
televised Cabinet meeting, according to Mulligan’s book, Trump said,
“Prescription drugs, for the first time in the history of our country, have
gone down in 2018." Trump said the press didn't want to report his
administration's success because they didn't want to give him the satisfaction.
The president, Mulligan
said, is known not just for exaggerating the facts on his own successes from
time to time but also, on occasion, for doing so to highlight his opponents'
weaknesses.
According to Mulligan’s
book, in fall 2018, on the recommendation of Mulligan and advisers such as
Miller, Trump began telling the public that Democrats' "Medicare for
all" plan would be “outlawing the ability of Americans to enroll in
private and employer-based plans.” This messaging on the proposed healthcare
plan was meant to highlight the negative elements of socialism, touted by some
Democrats such as 2020 presidential contender Bernie Sanders.
This was accurate.
Sanders's Medicare for All Act, for example, would have banned private
insurance.
Later, though, Trump
would go on to say that “Democrats want to outlaw private health plans,” which
is an accurate description of only some Democrats, the 141 Democratic members of
the 115th Congress who supported "Medicare for all" bills. Finally,
Trump said, “the Democrats want to outlaw private health
plans” (emphasis added), which is not accurate since many Democrats do not
support "Medicare for all" and thereby do not want to outlaw private
health insurance.
Trump saying “the
Democrats,” indicating all Democrats want to outlaw private health insurance,
enraged Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who doesn’t support
"Medicare for all" and bashed Trump for the
inaccuracy.
Through a series of
exaggerations, Mulligan said, Trump had successfully informed the public that
"Medicare for all" would take private health insurance away from
millions of people.
Within the current
context of the race riots occurring nationwide, Mulligan said Trump’s claim
that he’s the best president for African Americans is “probably not accurate.”
However, Mulligan added that Trump saying this exaggeration gets newspapers
such as the Washington Post to do a fact check on the claim because
it's so outlandish. Such fact checks then unintentionally inform people about
the positive steps Trump has taken to help the black community.
“If he hadn't made that
claim, the Washington Post would have never done any analysis
of Trump policies that are good for African Americans. Mission accomplished,
right?” said Mulligan.
“He manipulates the
fact checkers pretty easily,” added Mulligan.
An
Illustrated History of Government Agencies Twisting the Truth to Align With
White House Misinformation
When
Trump pushes outlandish misinformation, his federal agencies have turned it
into official guidance and policy. Some have later had to reverse themselves.
by Eric
Umansky June 22, 5:28 p.m. EDT
TRUMP
ADMINISTRATION
The 45th President and His Administration
It has become a familiar pattern: President Donald Trump says
something that doesn’t line up with the facts held by scientists and other
experts at government agencies. Then, instead of pushing back, federal
officials scramble to reconcile the fiction with their own public statements.
It happened in March, when Trump pushed his opinion that
antimalarial drugs could treat COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention issued an unusual directive that lent credence to the president’s
perspective: “Although optimal dosing and duration of hydroxychloroquine for
treatment of COVID-19 are unknown, some U.S. clinicians have reported
anecdotally” on specific dosages that the CDC then lists. The CDC’s language —
which the agency later retracted — shocked experts, who said the drug needed to
be treated with caution. The CDC told Reuters the agency had prepared the
guidance at the behest of the White House.
Perhaps the best known example of an agency twisting itself
into a pretzel stems from “Sharpiegate.” After the National Weather Service’s
Birmingham, Alabama, office contradicted Trump’s Sharpie fable that Hurricane
Dorian threatened the state, the agency overseeing the office put out a
statement backing the president over the scientists. Emails obtained by
BuzzFeed and The Washington Post showed just how the episode roiled the agency.
“You have no idea how hard I’m fighting to keep politics out of science,” one
official wrote. Another email simply had one word: “HELP!!!”
On the same day last week, two separate agencies cut through
the White House influence with their own factual conclusions.
The Food and Drug Administration announced last Monday that
it was revoking emergency approval of the malaria drugs, saying that the dosing
regimens promoted are “unlikely to produce an antiviral effect” and that their
risks — which include potentially fatal cardiac side effects — outweigh the
possible benefits.
Also that day, an independent panel investigating Sharpiegate
on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that top
officials — including acting chief Neil Jacobs — violated the policy that
forbids political interference with NOAA’s scientific findings. Meanwhile,
Trump nominated Jacobs to permanently lead the agency in December.
ProPublica catalogued other instances in which government
entities have changed language or made other moves buttressing the White
House’s unsupported assertions.
“Our Stockpile”
The morning after Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner asserted
that the national stockpile is “our stockpile” and not for states, the
government changed the wording on the stockpile’s website.
Before Kushner’s comments, it said the “stockpile ensures
that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most.”
That became: The stockpile’s “role is to supplement state and
local supplies,” and “many states have products stockpiled, as well.”
A government spokesman said the update had been in the works
for a week before Kushner’s comments. The spokesperson did not allow their name
to be used.
“No Proof of Anything”
In another instance, after Trump warned in a tweet of
“unknown Middle Easterners” crossing the border from Mexico — a “National
Emergy [sic]” — the Department of Homeland Security released figures to support
the claim. Upon inspection, it became clear the figures did nothing of the
sort.
A few days later, the president backed off his claim of
suspicious Middle Easterners crossing the border. “There’s no proof of
anything,” Trump said, “but there could very well be.”
Agencies’ attempts to bolster the White House haven’t always
borne fruit. In late 2018, Trump again warned about dangers at the Mexican
border. “Women are tied up, they’re bound, duct tape put around their faces,
around their mouths, in many cases they can’t even breathe,” Trump said.
“They’re put in the backs of cars or vans or trucks.”
It wasn’t at all clear what Trump was referring to, but a top
Border Patrol official tried to be of assistance. He emailed agents asking them
to pass along any such evidence. (The email was obtained by a Vox reporter,
Dara Lind, who’s now at ProPublica.)
The Border Patrol never followed up with examples.
The Inaugural Example
And then there was Trump’s first day in office. He publicly
complained about what he said were misleading photographs comparing the size of
the audience at his inauguration with President Barack Obama’s, and then-White
House Spokesman Sean Spicer falsely claimed a record crowd size.
The Post soon reported the president called the head of the
National Park Service to demand it release photos that would counter what he
saw as the misleading comparisons. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy
spokesperson, said the call was simply a reflection of a president who is “so
accessible, and constantly in touch.”
A government investigation later found that after the call a
National Park Service photographer cropped photos to take out empty areas. As
the report noted, “He selected a number of photos, based on his professional
judgment, that concentrated on the area of the national mall where most of the
crowd was standing.”
The report noted that no one ordered him to do so.
The 10% Tax Cut for the Middle Class
Congress has also gotten involved. Right before the 2018
elections, Trump made unplanned comments that middle-class Americans would be
getting a 10% tax cut. “We’ll be putting it in next week,” Trump said at a
campaign rally in Houston. Nobody in the White House or Capitol Hill had even
heard Trump talk about it before.
Republicans responded by saying they were working on rolling
out something — reportedly a nonbinding resolution — “over the coming weeks,”
as one congressman put it.
The cuts never happened.