Before you laugh at Eric Trump’s brazen dishonesty about the polls, keep in mind it was part of an insidious message that the presidential debates are rigged against Daddy Donald Trump in order to also rig the election against him. The conspiracy theory was validated by Sean Hannity.
Regardless of how well the “rigged election” conspiracy theory helps Daddy Trump retain office in November, Eric Trump (the son who ripped off a children's charity) has a financial incentive to keep donors enthused now: His wife reportedly pockets $180,000 a year from the Trump campaign, which reportedly skirts FEC rules to get her the dough.
First, Trump ran through the litany of Biden “not up to the job” memes heard ad nauseum on Fox: “This guy doesn’t have the mental capacity to be commander in chief of this country. … The guy won’t come out of his basement." He cited a few recent Biden gaffes as proof, while he and Hannity pretended Daddy Donald is sharp as a tack.
But then Trump got to the heart of his mission: Accusing the debate commission of rigging the debates for Biden:
TRUMP: You’re gonna have 16 states, 16 states that started voting, you’re gonna have 8 million votes cast before the first debate and it’s disgusting and it shouldn’t happen and it’s a travesty. And you know what? This guy is afraid of my father and I really believe that these debates are going to be an absolute bloodbath.
[…]
TRUMP: Do you think it’s any coincidence, Sean, that all the debates are at the end of September and into October? You know, if you look at North Carolina, I’ll just give you a great example. North Carolina starts voting September 4th. If you look at Florida, Florida starts voting September 14th, right? The debate doesn’t happen until September 29th. The first debate, and that’s not the last debate. You’re literally gonna have eight million votes that are cast before the first debate and they rigged this on purpose. That’s why he won’t slide the debates up, Sean. He doesn’t want to debate my father. There’s no question about it. That’s why he wants the debates as late as possible. Because that benefits him because he does not want to be on that debate stage.
…
The guy does not want to debate my father and it’s a travesty that this debate commission is probably very, very crooked.
Apparently, Eric Trump’s thesis is that people will be voting for Biden ahead of the debates only because he is in hiding and people won’t learn how much they prefer Trump until Mr. “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV” smashes Biden with his cognitive brilliance in a debate. Never mind that we see Trump in action every day. Even Eric Trump must know that Daddy is losing in the polls to Biden.
Not surprisingly, Trump’s Bedtime BFF Sean Hannity (sounding drunk) was all in on the BS.
HANNITY: This is corruption at the highest level. This is not fair to the American voter. He swears he wants to debate. He needs to debate. The country needs to see a debate before a single vote is cast, totally agree. Last word.
TRUMP: Well, listen, I think we’re looking really good. The polls are looking great. You see it every single day. The enthusiasm is tremendous. And I can tell you, as vocal as a lot of our supporters are, what’s under the surface, Sean, is tremendous. I see more enthusiasm going into 2020 than I did in 2016.
You can see why being rid of the entire Trump family is one more reason to vote Blue below, from the August 6, 2020 Hannity.
It appears that Pence’s childish spokesman is hoping to campaign on having “done something”. Except that his actual comments don’t add up. He says that COVID “will disappear”, which I suppose he could try to tell the nearly 160,000 US citizens who have already died and the hundred thousand more who are likely to die from it while he dithers. He says that his big solution is a “payroll tax deferral”. Except that this will not help the unemployed at all, and it only means that anyone currently paying this will still need to pay the bill in a few months, just like someone getting a rent deferral. Further, it’s an obvious attack on Social Security and Medicare funding, intended to help set up massive cuts to those programs if Pence prevails this November. And Pence’s childish spokesman promises to extend a UI boost – but he doesn’t say for how much, which was a crucial part of the negotiations that the GOP failed. If I had to guess, he’s thinking he’ll just illegally repurpose funds from the CARES Act to fund a $200 boost rather than the $600 level that was needed.
I’ll give the Pence White House that they can probably do something for an extension of the eviction moratoriums. But that does nothing to help the landlords who cannot afford to keep running their units if they have no income. And it means that the tenant who no longer has income just racks up a larger and larger unpayable debt to their landlord. If I had to guess, I’d say that many tenants will still choose to move out anyway rather than be stuck with upwards of 10K in rent debt. If the GOP has its way, I expect that a large number of millenials will find themselves moving back in with their parents or other family members to ride out this crisis. I’m aware of multiple people who have already done so.
And here we have one of the sons of Pence’s childish spokesman lying his own head off in support of the whole rancid mess. November cannot come soon enough, and assuming that voters actually make their voice heard, the same applies to next January. At the very least, we would be able to see the various state criminal cases against this gang unsealed and perhaps justice could finally be done.