The media has faced allegations of bias against Trump and he also got indicted four times during his 2024 presidential campaign. Smerconish, on “Press Club,” argued that these factors ended up helping Trump rather than hurting his appeal with voters.

“I don’t want it all distilled into this one sound bite or conclusion, but at the top of my list, I’ll say it that way … It’s like a parenting lesson. The more that you tell people what they can’t do, what’s intolerable, you must not do this, you should not do this, the more they’re going to rebel,” Smerconish told Mediaite editor Aidan McLaughlin. “Maybe they would have ultimately come to their own conclusion and rejected Donald Trump. I don’t know.”

“But I think that the constant browbeating and the combination of the media influence and the four indictments, one conviction, and showing that god-awful joke from Madison Square Garden a week in advance of the election on a loop — and I felt it, and I said it,” he added. “I can’t sit here, Aiden, telling you, well, this is the way I called the election, but I definitely felt the potential for a boomerang effect, and I think that came true. I really do.”

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe performed at Trump’s Oct. 27 Madison Square Garden rally, calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and receiving significant media backlash. However, Trump ended up winning a majority of Hispanic male votes nationwide in his race against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Republican voters in Georgia told MSNBC during a May segment that Trump’s legal issues have made them more passionate about supporting him.

“It’s actually caused me to support him more,” a voter named Antonio Jones said. “I just don’t believe that it’s a coincidence we have a trial happening in Atlanta, we have one happening in New York, so the question people are beginning to ask themselves like I did, is like, why now?”

Trump leads Harris in the popular vote by 2% with over 76 million votes as of Friday morning, according to The Associated Press.

After Trump’s election victory, his two federal cases will be dropped and his state cases probably will too, though there’s a possibility that ambitious local prosecutors could extend the battle, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported. For instance, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis signaled during a Wednesday interview with Atlanta News First that she intends to proceed with her case against Trump, which accuses him of attempting to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

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Trump announced Gaetz’ selection in a Truth Social post, describing him as a “deeply gifted and tenacious attorney, trained at the William & Mary College of Law” who would end “Weaponized Government.” Murphy, on “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” called the decision “stunning” and warned of “cataclysmic” consequences for “American democracy.”

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“I was walking off the Senate floor just moments ago when the news was announced. You could literally hear the jaws dropping to the floor of Republican senators who are now going to be in a position to stand up to Donald Trump in a way that they have been unwilling to. I mean, listen, Matt Gaetz is dangerously unqualified, but that’s not the worst of it,” Murphy said. “Gaetz has been Trump‘s chief defender when it comes to Trump’s assault on democracy, his attempt to overthrow the government on January 6. And he has openly called for the abolition of law enforcement agencies if they don’t get in line with conservative political priorities. This is going to be a red alert moment for American democracy.”

“Matt Gaetz is being nominated for one reason and one reason only. Because he will implement Donald Trump‘s transition of the Department of Justice from an agency that stands up for all of us to an agency that is simply an arm of the White House designed to persecute and prosecute Trump’s political enemies,” Murphy said. “This is a stunning announcement in some ways, but not surprising in others because Trump told us during the campaign that he was going to use the White House to go after people who politically opposed him, and it seems this pick for the head of the Department of Justice is very much in line with the promises he made during the campaign.”

Trump also announced Wednesday that he would appoint former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be director of National Intelligence. He also said he would appoint Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state. He announced on Tuesday that he would appoint Fox News host and veteran Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense.

“Matt Gaetz is being nominated because he will be and is today a political agent of Donald Trump. The ramifications of this pick, this particular pick, are stunning and potentially cataclysmic for American democracy,” Murphy added. “I hope that some Senate Republicans will see that.”

Trump is facing multiple federal prosecutions from special counsel Jack Smith, but the Department of Justice is considering how to wind down its cases against him as he prepares to take office in January, multiple reports indicate. DOJ policy bars the criminal prosecution of sitting presidents.

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Lichtman accurately forecast nine of the 10 last elections before wrongly predicting Harris would be victorious, according to USA Today. The historian, on his YouTube channel, argued that voters were not “rational” or “pragmatic” due to what he characterized as a massive uptick in “disinformation” and Trump’s promotion of “xenophobia,” “misogyny” and “racism.”

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“I think two things this year, and maybe going forward, broke this premise of a rational, pragmatic electorate, and these are trends that are not new but have exploded this year beyond anything we’ve ever seen before. First is disinformation,” Lichtman said. “Always had disinformation, but we’ve never had anything remotely on this scale, where billionaires — I don’t know how much Elon Musk is worth, I’m sure more than a hundred billion dollars — who control critical sources of information for the electorate. I mean, Elon Musk owns X, and I’ve seen reports that his disinformation that he’s put out, has been viewed by two billion viewers, vastly more influential than New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, CBS.”

The historian also alleged that Musk is not the only billionaire disseminating “disinformation.” He asserted that “the incredible explosion of disinformation” has led to Americans believing falsehoods about the state of the American economy, “mak[ing] it very difficult for a rational, pragmatic electorate to operate.”

“Then add to that that we’ve seen Trump and his allies exploit, far more than ever before — even 2016 and 2020 — trends that run deep into American history and still resonate at this time: xenophobia, fear of foreign influences … We have never seen, in recent history, xenophobia to this level, and it digs deep into a trend in American history. It’s not something brand new, and it’s not just white people, you know?” Lichtman said. “People of all races and ethnicities can be subject to xenophobia.”

“And finally, there’s racism, one of the deepest, most pervasive trends in American history,” he added. “And we have seen, just as Trump and his allies have brought misogyny and xenophobia to a new level, he’s also brought blatant racism to a new level … So we see then the explosion of disinformation and these three dark trends from American history, and that calls into question the whole premise behind the keys of rationality and pragmatism.”

Lichtman earlier in his video also said the Democratic Party publicly attacking President Joe Biden when he was still running for reelection could have contributed to his wrong prediction.

Radio host Charlamagne Tha God and CNN’s Van Jones both recently argued against exclusively blaming the election results on “racism” and “sexism.”

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Biden made the comment during a Tuesday Zoom call with the organization Voto Latino after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at Trump’s Sunday Madison Square Garden rally. Luntz, on “CNN News Central,” argued Biden’s remark holds greater weight than Hinchcliffe’s because he is the president, adding that it was “inappropriate” even if people interpret it differently.

“It’s gonna be huge because this is not some comedian saying something stupid and offensive at a rally where he should have been just basically disinvited. This is the president of the United States endorsing his vice president saying something, and I know that there’s different interpretations about what he said,” Luntz said. “It’s still inappropriate. He still shouldn’t be doing it and I’ve watched Trump already seize this.”

“The basket of deplorables was significant, was meaningful in 2016. In 2024, I can promise you that this is gonna drive Trump turnout,” he added. “He’s doing it already … I’m sure there’s going to be ads on as soon as tonight about this. This may be a turning point for those final 3%, and that’s all it is, who still need to be persuaded.”

Trump currently leads Vice President Kamala Harris slightly in five of the top seven battleground states, with Harris only holding narrow advantages in Michigan and Wisconsin, according to RealClearPolling averages.

“And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage.’ Well, let me tell you something … I don’t know the Puerto Rican that I know — or a Puerto Rico, where I’m — in my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people,” Biden said Tuesday. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”

Biden tried to clarify his comments in an X post Tuesday night following criticism, claiming he was referencing Hinchcliffe’s “hateful rhetoric” rather than all Trump supporters.

The White House first published a transcript that recorded Biden saying “supporters’,” with a plural possessive apostrophe. It subsequently changed the transcript to read “supporter’s,” suggesting that Biden was only referring to Hinchcliffe.

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(DCNF)—Journalist Mark Halperin said Friday that mounting “data” suggests former President Donald Trump is gaining momentum against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Harris currently trails Trump slightly in all seven top swing states, according to the RealClear Polling averages. Halperin, on his 2WAY platform, noted a lack of confidence among Democrats as Harris’ likelihood of defeating Trump in November appears unlikely.

“Unfortunately for blue America, there’s an asymmetry in what’s going on now. We could spend all day, the three of us, trying to get a Democrat on the phone who was super confident, like, ‘We’re going to win.’ We wouldn’t succeed in terms of political professionals, members of Congress, strategists,” Halperin said.” It would take us one call, random dial any Republican in our rolodex, to find someone who said, ‘Yeah, I’m pretty confident we’re going to win.’ Or more.”

“Okay, that’s an asymmetry. It’s just a reality. Some attribute it to cultural differences between the party and there’s something to that,” he continued. “There’s qualitative and quantitative data everywhere you look that things have moved in Trump’s direction and that it will be difficult for her to win, but not impossible. And that is causing a lot of tension in blue America.”

Halperin then pointed to The New York Times/Siena College’s last national poll of the 2024 election cycle, which the outlet published on Friday and found Trump and Harris tied at 48%. The previous NYT/Siena poll published on Oct. 8 found Harris leading Trump 49% to 46% nationally.

“The conventional wisdom has been, even though it may be false, that if Donald Trump is tied or within a couple points in the national poll, he’s going to win. Now The New York Times says it’s possible that Kamala Harris could win the electoral college and lose the popular vote,” Halperin said. “And we’ve talked about Trump over-performing from last time in the big blue states that could make him a bigger popular vote winner, but still lose the electoral college. Possible.”

The poll also found Trump drawing 42% of Hispanic voters and 11% of black voters. Halperin read from an X post from CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein reacting to the poll, which states it “shows Harris basically matching [President Joe] Biden winning 2020” percentages among whites, but “slipping” among minorities, particularly Latinos.

The analyst asserted this data “explains why less diverse Rustbelt states remain the most plausible path for her, as they were for Biden.”

The journalist also read from an X post from pollster and former Bill Clinton adviser Mark Penn, which states, “[The Wall Street Journal] and Forbes polls all show 3 to 4 point movements in the direction of Trump in the last few weeks. This is real movement and momentum going into the close. It is still close but this is a substantial move.”

Halperin also asserted Tuesday that Trump will be elected president on Nov. 5 if the current early voting trajectory “continues.”

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Harris told “The View” co-hosts on Oct. 8 that “nothing comes to mind” regarding how she would govern differently from President Joe Biden. Halperin, on “Wake Up America,” said he thinks Harris has failed to “define her differences with Joe Biden” throughout her campaign, and her limited public appearances have enabled others to shape voter perceptions of her.

“The thing she eventually said, she’d put a Republican in the cabinet, is just so vague and meaningless that I don’t think — if people think, whether her supporters think it or her critics think it, she needs to define her differences with Joe Biden,” Halperin said. “I don’t think you could say she’s done that yet, and that is what a lot of voters have doubts about, even ones who are probably more inclined to vote for her.”

“She’s got a bunch of stuff coming up, including a potential appearance on Joe Rogan that Reuters is reporting she might do. You know, it’s late in the game to be defining herself. Her staff’s right. This was a quick campaign, but you look at her schedule, more days than not, she’s got one event, zero events, a lot of staff meetings,” he continued. “And so if the goal is to define herself, then she’s letting other people do it for her more than she’s doing it herself, hour by hour.”

Democrats, including some of Harris’ own staffers, expressed worries to Politico in an article published Oct. 5 that Harris’ avoidant media strategy and limited campaign schedule could backfire in the final month of her campaign. Soon after, she launched a media blitz that consisted mainly of friendly interviews.

“I think there’s a few panickers. It’s mostly existential dread. They’re hoping to see her performance level rise up, because they’d like to see her take command of this contest as opposed to what happens, which is she’s more days than not, she’s not really making news, even in these high-profile interviews,” Halperin added. “So I think if we saw another round of bad polls, panic would set in in some quarters. For now, they’re kind of trying to convince themselves that between their turnout operation and abortion rights and [former President] Trump’s ceiling, that they’re still gonna win this.”

Trump currently has narrow advantages over Harris in six out of the main seven swing states, with the vice president only slightly leading in Wisconsin, according to the RealClearPolling averages.

Former President Barack Obama’s chief campaign strategist, David Axelrod, said on Thursday that Democrats are “right to be concerned” about Harris’ chances against Trump in November. He credited the Trump campaign with being “very disciplined in their media,” which he asserted is intended to portray Harris as “a continuation of Biden’s economics” and “an exotic, left-wing radical.”

“They have been burning that message in, and I think that’s had some impact,” Axelrod said.

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(DCNF)—CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten expressed surprise Monday at the degree to which “young black men” are abandoning the Democratic Party

Former President Barack Obama on Thursday urged black men to support Vice President Kamala Harris while speaking at a Pittsburgh-area campaign office, asserting he believes a reason for their reluctance to back her is that they “aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.” Enten, on “CNN News Central,” said Obama was likely mistaken in his criticism as “young black men” have increasingly been leaving the Democratic Party over multiple elections against former President Donald Trump.

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“I look at the polls all the time and sometimes there’s a trend line, now, I never noticed before and make me go, ‘Woah.’ This is one of them. Alright, this is the Democratic margin among black men under the age of 45 in presidential elections. You go back to November of 2012, what do you see? You see Obama by 81, [former Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton only won ’em by 63,” Enten said. “Then we’re all the way down to [President Joe] Biden last time around by 53. A tremendous drop already. And then you take a look at the average of the most recent polls and Kamala Harris is up by only 41 points.”

“That is about half the margin that Obama won them by back in November of 2012. And this I think is, you know, when Barack Obama goes and last week when he was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to essentially talking to young black men, he made it seem like it was a Kamala Harris-specific problem,” he added. “Uh-uh. This is part of a longstanding trend of young black men moving away from the Democratic Party. And Kamala Harris is just the latest to face that magnitude of black, younger black men going towards Republicans.”

Black voters have shifted away from Democrats from 2016 to 2024, according to a Saturday New York Times/Siena College poll. During the 2016 election, only 7% of black voters favored Republicans, a number now at 15%.

While Trump is gaining traction with “working class voters,” including nonwhite Americans without college degrees and union members, Enten previously noted that Harris could offset his gains with her “ridiculously” strong support among college graduates, particularly “white college grads.”

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Harris’ support among black and Hispanic voters as of Sept. 24 lagged “significantly” behind President Joe Biden’s support at the same point in the 2020 race, based on data from the Cook Political Report and CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten’s aggregate of polling. On journalist Mark Halperin’s 2WAY platform, a Hispanic Florida Trump voter with the last name Rodriguez and a black Trump voter from New York named Gloria praised the former president and criticized Harris.

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“She’s fake, she’s scripted, she gives a lot of word salad, and she’s from California for goodness sakes,” Rodriguez said when asked what she finds most troubling about Harris.

“She lies, and the thing about it, what makes me upset, and I’m a Hispanic woman, is that the media, everybody treats the people, American people, like we’re idiots,” she added. “We see it … That’s what makes us even more angry.”

Harris is only beating Trump by 14% with Hispanic voters, according to a national NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll conducted from Sept. 16-23.

“I love a strong man, and … Kamala does not give me that,” Rodriguez asserted.

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“I honestly think she’s dangerous for black people, based on her record in California as a prosecutor. She was jailing mothers for truancy,” Gloria said. “She was locking people up and holding them in prison after their time to fight fire … It’s her whole history, especially with black people in California, has just been whitewashed like it never happened.”

As San Francisco district attorney from 2004 to 2010, Harris’ prosecutors convicted nearly 2,000 people for marijuana-related offenses, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. She also advocated for prosecuting truancy cases, a policy that led to the prosecution of parents whose children were frequently missing from school, according to NBC News.

“The one thing we can say is Donald Trump never enacted laws that harm black people,” Gloria added.

Trump has support from 15% of black voters, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll published in September. He has been polling stronger among both black and Hispanic voters than he did in 2016 and 2020.

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Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are locked in a tight race across seven key battleground states, according to the RealClearPolling average and Enten’s aggregate of polling data. The data reporter, on “CNN News Central,” noted that if Trump outperforms his polling numbers by the same margin he did against President Joe Biden in 2020, he will win enough battleground states to defeat Harris by a substantial margin.

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“If the polls are exactly right, Kamala Harris gets 276 electoral votes to Donald Trump’s 262 because she carries those Great Lake battleground states despite losing North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona. But let’s say we have a polling miss like we had in 2020,” Enten said. “What happens then? Well, then Donald Trump wins the election in a blowout with 312 electoral votes because he carries all these Great Lake battleground states plus Nevada, plus the other states he was leading in — Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia.”

“What happens if we have a polling miss like 2022? Well, in that particular case, now, the winner has flipped again. And Kamala Harris wins in a blowout with 319 electoral votes because she retakes those Great Lake battleground states, carries North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona,” he added. “So the bottom line here is, yes, we have those state polling averages. But the real thing they tell us is that this race is too close to call. We’re probably not going to know who’s going to win for another month and perhaps another month and change.”

NBC News national political correspondent Steve Kornacki said in September that, despite Harris’ slim advantage over Trump at the time, the former president has a significant chance of victory in the electoral college because he has outperformed polling expectations in both of his previous presidential elections.

“Take a look here at the last two elections, 2020, 2016, the polling at this point coming out of Labor Day, beginning the fall rush,” Kornacki told host Ana Cabrera. “In 2016, Hillary Clinton led on average by five points. Of course, Donald Trump won in 2016. And Joe Biden had an even bigger lead on average, Labor Day 2020. Donald Trump didn’t win that election, but certainly in the electoral college, he came this close to doing so, Ana. So Trump has run from behind before, certainly.”

Trump has also been gaining support from “working class voters,” such as nonwhite Americans without college degrees and union members. Enten on Monday said that Harris could offset the former president’s gains with her substantial backing among college graduates, “specifically white voters with a college degree.”

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During a rally on Sunday, Trump suggested that “one really violent day” of law enforcement would effectively end retail theft. Kirschner argued on his YouTube channel that Trump’s rhetoric makes him “dangerous” and that he should be imprisoned in light of his ongoing legal issues.

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“I only wish Donald Trump’s incessantly violent rhetoric would provoke a response from the institutions of government, the prosecutors and the courts … Donald Trump is the single most dangerous person to the community, to the American people. And he’s a defendant on pre-trial release in multiple criminal cases,” Kirschner said. “And he’s a defendant pending sentencing on release in yet another criminal case.”

“The law provides that if somebody is on release in a felony case and they pose a danger to the community, they should be revoked on release and detained pending trial or pending sentencing,” he added. “But I’ve pretty much given up hope that the institutions of government will apply the law as it was intended to be applied, as it would be applied to you, me, or anybody else in the country. They refuse to apply it to Donald Trump.”

A Manhattan jury convicted Trump in May on 34 counts for falsifying business documents related to reimbursing his then-attorney for a nondisclosure agreement with porn star Stormy Daniels. The former president’s sentencing was scheduled for Sept. 18, but Judge Juan Merchan postponed the date “if necessary” to Nov. 26, according to his order on Sept. 6.

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Cherkasky said Merchan’s decision could indicate his intention to jail Trump after the November election.

“So I’m going to shift my focus because the election is coming up, and I don’t expect prosecutors or courts to do anything about the danger Donald Trump poses to our country and to her people. But maybe, just maybe, after he loses the election in a landslide — and he will — maybe the time will be right for the institutions of government, better late than never, to apply the rule of law to Donald Trump,” Kirschner said. “He will no longer be a candidate for office, no reason for prosecutors or courts to be afraid to act and apply the law without fear or favor equally to Donald Trump.”

“And maybe after he loses the election, we will see courts issue what are called show cause orders, directing Donald Trump show cause, why he shouldn’t be revoked on pre-trial release or revoked pending sentencing and detained in his criminal cases,” he continued. “That is certainly what should happen, should have happened long ago. And I hope we don’t have to wait for the second Donald Trump-inspired and incited insurrection. We’ve seen that movie before, and I don’t know how much more our nation can take.”

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