President Trump seems confident he’s going to be re-elected in 2020. He also seems prepared to challenge the results should a Democrat unseat him. While speaking Tuesday night at a National Republican Congressional Committee fundraiser, the president implied that the 2018 midterm elections were rigged in favor of Democrats, who won control of the House of Representatives overwhelmingly, and that the 2020 election results could also be illegitimate should Republicans fail to prevail. “We have to be a little bit careful, because I don’t like the way the votes are being tallied,” Trump said. “You don’t like it either, you just don’t want to say it because you’re afraid of the press.”
Trump at NRCC dinner says there "were a lot of close elections" in 2018 and "every one seemed to go Democrat…You’ve got to be a little more paranoid than you are … you don’t like it either but you don’t want to say it because you’re afraid of the press."
— Jordyn Phelps (@JordynPhelps) April 2, 2019
Trump told the NRCC: “We have to be a little bit careful, because I don't like the way the votes are being tallied… You don't like it either, you just don't want to say it because you're afraid of the press.” https://t.co/U8dzQn9CEn
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) April 2, 2019
Trump has long indicated he might not be content to pack up his bags and skip out of the White House were he to lose the 2020 election. Despite possessing no evidence, the president has claimed millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election, and that Democrats were literally busing people across state lines so they could vote multiple times. Trump’s claims of voter fraud were likely an exercise to protect his ego after having lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, and they will almost certainly be renewed — and with far more vigor — should he lose next year. As Michael Cohen — who understands how Trump’s mind works possibly better than anyone — said during his testimony before the House Oversight Committee last month, “I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.”
Tuesday night, when he wasn’t calling America’s electoral process into question, Trump was delighting the crowd of GOP donors by attacking several leading Democratic figures, including Joe Biden. “We’re going into the war with some socialist,” he said of the 2020 election. “It looks like the only non-sort of-heavy socialist is being taken care of pretty well by the socialists. They got to him. Our former vice president. I was going to call him, I don’t know him well, I was going to say, ‘Welcome to the world, Joe. You having a good time, Joe? Are you having a good time?'”
Trump was likely referring to the recent criticism of Biden’s handsy approach to politics. Four women have come forward in the past week to say that Biden made them feel uncomfortable by touching or kissing them in an inappropriate way.
Pres. Trump tees up 2020 fight with swipes at Biden at NRCC dinner. https://t.co/MxJCE7uKo0 pic.twitter.com/EjbNOU4AEU
— ABC News (@ABC) April 3, 2019
Trump also joked about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who he disparaged as a “young bartender, 29 years old,” drawing huge laughs, and Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), who he claimed, falsely, wants to build a train to Hawaii because the Green New Deal would eliminate air travel, which also is not true.
Trump started to criticize Hawaii Dem Sen. Mazie Hirono as “highly…”—then stopped himself.
“Nice woman, right?” he told NRCC fundraiser. “Ah, I’m glad I didn’t say it. I’m going to get great points from my wife for not saying that.”
Then: “But she was so angry to men, right?” https://t.co/sHrX0q50GM
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) April 3, 2019
The president also continued his crusade against wind power, a bizarre issue that he’s brought up multiple times in the past week. “Hillary wanted to put up wind,” the president said. “Wind. If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value. And they say the noise causes cancer. You tell me that one [makes windmill sound effect, mimics rotor motion with hand]. And of course it’s like a graveyard for birds. If you love birds you’d never want to walk under a windmill.”
Here's video of Trump talking about wind mills at the NRCC dinner tonight: "They say the noise causes cancer.” pic.twitter.com/tpsmZI8k7n
— Brandon Wall (@Walldo) April 3, 2019
The tone of the speech was lighthearted, and almost all of Trump’s jabs drew huge laughs from the crowd of Republican big wigs. At one point, Trump lamented that an attendee was probably going to end up leaking his off-color comments. “Someone’s going to leak this whole damn speech to the media,” he said.
The event was broadcast live on CSPAN.
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