November 9, 2020, 12:26 pm
Donald Trump and his campaign team might be having a difficult time coping with the fact that Joe Biden is almost certainly going to be the next president, making Trump a one-termer. Exhibit A: The photos tweeted by campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh showing the team’s office covered in photocopies of a Washington Times front page declaring Al Gore the winner of the year 2000 election.
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The election 20 years ago was a contentious one, similar to this year’s, coming down to a legal battle over Florida that handed the presidency to George W. Bush in spite of Gore winning the popular vote. However, that front-page image is, as they say, fake news.
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Murtaugh’s tweet was deleted after The Washington Times itself replied to let him know that the front page was a fake, but the internet always gets its screenshots.
“Greeting staff at @TeamTrump HQ this morning, a reminder that the media doesn’t select the President,” he wrote before deleting.
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The real version of the Times cover has also been found in the internet’s archives and in fact declared Bush to be the winner of the election, which tracks with the paper’s conservative leanings. According to BuzzFeed News, the doctored version declaring Gore president first appeared in 2010 on Deviant Art, which as every former edgy teen artist knows is officially embarrassing.
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It is true, however, that multiple major news networks declared Al Gore the winner of Florida initially, later retracting this projection when late-counted votes brought it into “too close to call” territory. This year’s election is a bit different, of course, as multiple swing states would have to be contested by the Trump administration for him to win. They are clearly still trying, but at this point, they’re starting to seem more than a little desperate.
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“With each passing day the Trump campaign grows more desperate and dishonest,” wrote commenter Denise Shearin.
There have been some conflicting reports, but many major news outlets today are reporting that multiple Trump advisors are urging the current president to concede, viewing his efforts to challenge the election results in court as “futile.” Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has gone so far as to express that everyone should be asking Trump to pony up some evidence of voter fraud.
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“You have the president sitting in the White House not acknowledging it and I think there’s lots of Republicans who are trying to feel their way around that,” he said on ABC News. “That’s why it was so important to say early on to the president, ‘if your basis for not conceding was voter fraud, then show us.’”
*First Published: November 9, 2020, 12:26 pm
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