On Election Day 2020, one of President Donald Trump’s closing arguments to voters is that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is a “sick person.” He made this belligerent assertion during an early Tuesday morning interview on Fox & Friends in which he also ranted against opponents like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). During his time on Fox, Trump complained that the “most difficult” country to “deal with” is the United States — but “dealing with” the United States is, quite literally, the basic job of the president! It’s clear: if Trump is complaining this much about basic job responsibilities, he’s unfit.
Trump complained to the Fox hosts:
‘You deal with people that are very deceptive, and they’ll go: Mr. President, tell me, who’s the country that’s most difficult to deal with? Is it Russia? Is it China? Is it North Korea?.. And I go no, by far the most difficult country to deal with is the U.S. — not even close. And they all say, you’ve gotta be kidding! And I say no, I’m actually probably not kidding. We have very, very deceptive people. We have some people — I think they’re sick in some ways, like in Adam Schiff. I think Adam Schiff is a sick person.’
Trump is dehumanizing his opponents. Even if he resoundingly loses the ongoing presidential race, the consequences of Trump’s cultish dehumanization of his opponents could reverberate across American politics for many years to come. Watch some of Trump’s early Tuesday morning comments on Fox below:
Trump bizarrely claims that "the US" is harder to deal with than Russia or North Korea, as though America is a foreign country pic.twitter.com/XNtQagudrv
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 3, 2020
During his time on Fox, Trump also discussed more general prospects for his campaign. He insisted that his team feels “very good” about their chances, and he derided polls that have come out showing him well behind Joe Biden as “suppression polls,” as if they’re designed to suppress the vote. After that remark, Trump claimed that he doesn’t “know how they rate the chances” — which seems like a potential self-contradiction, since he’d just self-confidently insisted that polls were “suppression polls.”
Trump self-confidently told the hosts:
‘We feel very good. We have crowds that nobody’s ever had before. I think you can agree. It’s been incredible — the crowds have been incredible. Nobody’s ever had it before. I think that translates into a lot of votes, and we’re gonna see very soon, but we’re getting very good response. We’re getting a very early response to see.’
Trump subsequently faced questioning about speculation that he may declare victory before final results come in, although just to be clear, no declaration of victory would automatically end the race. Trump claimed to the Fox hosts that he’d only declare victory “when” or “if there’s victory.”
As Trump put it, when asked about the circumstances in which he’d declare victory:
‘When there’s victory, if there’s victory — I think we’ll have victory. I think the polls are suppression polls, and I think we’ll have victory — but only when there’s victory, and there’s no reason to play games, and I think we’ll have victory. I look at it as being a very solid chance of winning. I don’t know what the chances are. I don’t know how they rate the chances, but I think we have a very solid chance of winning.’
Check out Trump’s comments below:
"It's been a great run" — Trump pic.twitter.com/xdeU8KHQuX
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 3, 2020
Nobody:
Not a single soul:
Trump supporters: pic.twitter.com/Wh0XyJhgbE
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 3, 2020
