President Donald Trump delusionally compared himself to George Washington during a Tuesday radio interview with conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt. Specifically, Trump claimed that Washington “would have had a hard time beating” Trump if the two of them were — somehow — pitted against one another in a presidential race in the political environment immediately prior to the Coronavirus pandemic. There is, of course, absolutely zero evidence for this claim, although it’s not even the first time that Trump has triumphantly compared himself to a high-profile historical figure. At one point, he claimed that his approval level was higher than Abraham Lincoln’s — but presidential approval polls were not conducted in Lincoln’s day.
In this case, Trump told Hewitt:
‘I don’t know if you’ve seen, the polls have been going up like a rocket ship. George Washington would have had a hard time beating me before the plague came in, before the China plague. And then, you know, like every other nation, like other countries, when you get hit, it affects you, and we went down a little bit.’
In what universe are Trump’s poll numbers going “up like a rocket ship”? As of Tuesday afternoon, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads Trump in national polls by an average of 7.2 percent, according to RealClearPolitics. In a Georgetown University/ Battleground poll that was conducted in the early days of August, Biden led on the national level by a staggering 13 percent, with 53 percent of the support compared to just 40 percent for Trump. In a Monmouth University poll that was also conducted recently, Biden led by 10 percent, with 51 percent of the support compared to 41 percent for Trump.
More acutely — it is utterly ridiculous for Trump to compare himself to George Washington in this way. He sounds entirely disconnected from reality.
Trump is unpopular neither because of some kind of secret conspiracy nor because he “got hit” by the “China virus,” which is a brazenly racist description for the Coronavirus, which — obviously! — has no nationality. Trump is unpopular because of the abject failures of his own administration, which has left Americans to struggle and fend for themselves amidst crises like the pandemic and associated economic meltdown. Trump simply sounds so wildly self-obsessed that he refuses to acknowledge these issues and instead tries to use the “China virus” as a scapegoat for his own failures.
Yikes https://t.co/pnuQ7N7mrP
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 10, 2020
Meanwhile, during his interview with Hewitt, Trump also complained about the prospects of debating Biden. He said:
‘If [Biden] goes and debates, if he said ‘Yes, I had a wonderful breakfast, thank you for asking the question,’ they’ll give him, they’ll say it was one of the greatest answers in history. So you know, I know what I’m up against, and I had a smaller dose of it with Hillary. But Hillary was smart. Joe was never smart. Joe wasn’t smart in prime time.’
It’a amazing that the guy who — just this week! — suggested that the 1918 flu pandemic may have ended World War II (which ended in the 1940s!) suggests that it’s the other guy who “was never smart.”
Trump says the pandemic of 1918 probably ended World War II 🤔
— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) August 10, 2020
