On the evening of November 3, 2020, as it became increasingly clear that Donald Trump was losing in states he thought he would win, a wave of panic swept over the Trump family, according to I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year, a new book by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post.
Leonnig and Rucker note that what had been predicted by many began to take shape early on Election Night, and that was bad news for Trump:
“As the night wore on, some of Trump’s advisers began to worry. Public polls, as well as the Trump campaign’s internal surveys, had long projected that the race was Biden’s to lose, and that prediction was bearing out as more precincts reported votes from battleground states.”
When Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden shortly before 11:30 p.m., all momentum shifted firmly to the Democrats, and the air began to go out of Trump and his campaign team:
“Trump, who had been watching Fox, was livid. He could not fathom that the conservative news network he had long considered an extension of his campaign was the first news organization to call Arizona for Biden. This was a betrayal. His top advisers, who had been in the Map Room at the time, rushed upstairs to see the president. Giuliani followed them.”
Eric Trump, who had been following returns in the White House Map Room and had confidently predicted his father would win at least 322 electoral votes (he actually wound up with 232, far below Eric’s rosy projection), began to lose it totally, according to the book:
“‘The election is being stolen,’ the president’s 36-year-old son said. ‘Where are these votes coming from? How is this legit?’
“He yelled at the campaign’s data analysts, as if it were their fault that his father’s early leads over Biden were shrinking. ‘We pay you to do this,’ he said. ‘How can this be happening?'”
Eric’s brother, the perpetually clueless Don Jr., insisted:
“There’s no way we lose to this guy.”
But they did lose. And they lost by a wide margin, with Biden and Kamala Harris winning by a margin of 306 to 232 votes in the Electoral College.
Why all the surprise from the Trumps? Because they believed their own bullshit. They presented a false narrative and began to think it was real. They fell for their own con job.
But what probably terrified Donald, Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka the most as the election results rolled in was the cold reality that now they wouldn’t have the legal protections afforded to sitting presidents. There would be no willing accomplice at the Justice Department to protect them. The indictments could begin as soon as the Donald was no longer head of state.
And the indictments have indeed begun. More are on the way. Because karma is catching up with the Trumps. And there’s nothing they can do to forestall the inevitable.
