On the evening of Nov. 3, 2020, Donald Trump was attempting the grift of a lifetime. He wanted to take advantage of the red mirage he’d heard about—and which all election experts predicted—to prematurely claim victory. Presumably having studied the 2000 election—and understanding that George W. Bush seized the inside track to the presidency after his cousin called Florida for the Republican, prompting CNN, CBS, NBC, and ABC to quickly follow suit—Trump wanted to establish a presumption of victory.
Of course, all that went out the window when Fox News called Arizona, a traditionally Republican stronghold, for Joe Biden. And that’s when Donald Trump’s rectum prolapsed so suddenly it shattered every window in a 14-block radius.
You could see it in his face and hear it in his voice as he feebly attempted to declare his ersatz triumph: “We were getting ready to win this election; frankly, we did win this election,” he whined. And just like that, the Big Lie was born.
That’s why everyone in the Trump camp was so angry about Fox’s call: They were channeling Pol Pot Pie’s incandescent rage.
Well, now we’re discovering the extent to which the propaganda arm of Fox News, which treats the hard news side like a vestigial twin it’s perpetually on the verge of drowning in a foot bath, was alarmed by its Decision Desk’s ultimately correct call.
According to Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s new book The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, Baier was freaking out about the call because he knew Trump’s pantaloons were in a bunch over it.
According to the book, on the night of the election, Baier wrote a hair-on-fire email to Fox President and Executive Editor Jay Wallace about the Fox Decision Desk call: “The Trump campaign was really pissed,” the email read. “This situation is getting uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. I keep having to defend this on air.”
Meanwhile, in a moment eerily reminiscent of the Helsinki Surrender Summit, Baier decided to give the benefit of the doubt to the biggest liar in the western hemisphere instead of trusting his own colleagues. Business Insider reports:
The authors wrote that journalists on the Decision Desk thought there was "no serious question about Arizona," but Baier, in his email, accused them of "'holding on for pride,'" the book says.
"’It's hurting us,'" he wrote, according to the book. "'The sooner we pull it — even if it gives us major egg — and we put it back in his column the better we are in my opinion.'"
The authors called the statement "stunning," given that Arizona was never in the Trump column, even if his margin of defeat in the state narrowed just after the election. "The leading news anchor for Fox was pushing not just to say Arizona was too close to call but to pretend that the president had won it," they wrote.
According to Glasser and Baker, Wallace balked at rescinding the Arizona call, but he did later refuse to let the Decision Desk call Nevada for Biden after the other networks had already done so. The reason? He “did not want Fox to be the first to call the election and declare Biden president-elect,” the authors note.
What a difference eight years makes. In 2012, when America’s top intestinal parasite, Karl Rove, freaked out over Fox’s call for Obama in Ohio, he was left alone to froth at the mouth, and mathematics ultimately triumphed. But when Trump tried to run his grift, he apparently had plenty of takers in the newsroom.
Then again, maybe Baier could have spared some spittle if he’d simply read this revealing Axios story from two nights before the election:
President Trump has told confidants he'll declare victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he's "ahead," according to three sources familiar with his private comments. That's even if the Electoral College outcome still hinges on large numbers of uncounted votes in key states like Pennsylvania. ...
Behind the scenes: Trump has privately talked through this scenario in some detail in the last few weeks, describing plans to walk up to a podium on election night and declare he has won.
- For this to happen, his allies expect he would need to either win or have commanding leads in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Arizona and Georgia.
Oh, gee. You mean the thing Trump talked about doing for weeks is the thing he actually ended up doing? And we’re still supposed to think the election was stolen from him?
Hey, if you believe that, I’ve got approximately 100 highly classified U.S. government documents to sell you.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.