Perhaps the biggest and longest running con game of all time was exposed by none other than the con man himself. Donald Trump has admitted he lost the 2020 election.
After four years of claiming he won, after raising hundreds of millions of dollars to fund legal challenges and appeals of election denial, after inciting a riot at the Capitol that resulted in five deaths, more than a thousand arrests, hundreds of trials, guilty verdicts, incarcerations and ruined lives, as well as an assault on our Constitution, Trump has finally, publicly, confessed his election denial was a ruse.
“I was told if I got 63 million, which is what I got the first time, ‘You would win. You can’t not win.’ And I got millions more votes than that and lost by a whisker,” Trump told Lex Fridman in Fridman’s podcast released on Tuesday (https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/ifv2ReSz).
He didn’t lose “by a whisker.” Joe Biden got seven million more popular votes, 81.2 million vs. Trump’s 74.2 million. And, in the decisive Electoral College tally, Biden trounced Trump 306 to 232.
With the debate next Tuesday with Kamala Harris in mind, Trump may be trying to soften his image, much as he has flip-flopped on women’s reproductive rights, in the hope of appealing to undecided independent voters.
It will be up to ABC’s David Muir and Linsay Davis to force him to set the record straight, not on some obscure podcast but in front of tens of millions who will view the debate.
The first question and plenty of followups should be on the false narrative Trump advanced. For her part, Harris must sharply rebuke him as her training as a prosecutor should instruct her. Indeed, his con duping the public into sending money for his deceitful cause may well have constituted an illegal act.
Trump’s rally cry to “Stop the Steal” of an election should be turned on him—he should be charged in federal and state courts with stealing money from supporters who were led by Trump to believe that he won the 2020 election.
Forget border security, the economy, Israel, Ukraine, energy—all those important issues and more are inconsequential compared to the rot Trump has implanted in our country, his rejection of the peaceful transfer of power, his bilking millions into believing in his honesty, fleecing them of hundreds of millions of dollars, corrupting the integrity of a political party, hollowing out its soul and replacing it with zombie-like allegiance.
Yes, the whole 90 minute debate should be a deep dive into Trump’s malfeasance in his final days in office and the ensuing nearly four years. Do not let him soft pedal his actions. Expressing remorse would not be sufficient for his attack on democracy.
