Ex-president Donald Trump is trying to gin up a new round of election denying as the Republican party faces a much more dour outcome than it and many Democrats and pollsters had anticipated.
In the latest roundup of his online statements over the past few days, Trump tried to sew doubt about the Pennsylvania election, in which Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, who Trump endorsed, lost to Pennsylvania Lieutenant Gov. John Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke.
Trump mocked that recovery, asking how Oz could lose to someone who "who can’t string together two sentences," and called Pennsylvania a corrupt state. He repeated his unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the state in 2020.
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Trump earlier in the week had mocked his potential rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Trump said on his Truth Social website: "Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me."
Of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump mockingly called him Gov. Ron Sanctimonius, "an average Republican governor with great public relations."
Finally, perhaps in response to all the media outlets pointing to his increasingly threadbare coattails as costing any number of Republican candidates their elections, Trump suggested any success the media had, or didn't have, was all about him.
"If CNN were smart, they’d open up a Conservative network, only have me on, and it would be the most successful network in History," he wrote. "Fox only made it because of me, Twitter only made it because of me, and even Facebook is now in the tubes, having lost almost $90 billion in value since I was taken off, which was considered one of the biggest mistakes in business over the last two years..."
Trump continues to suggest he will announce a 2024 presidential run this coming Tuesday (Nov. 15) at his Mar-a-Lago estate, though given Republicans' underperformance in what was billed as a potential "red wave" midterm, it is unclear how many will be lining up behind him this time around. ■
