MSNBC’s John Heilemann: Trump Really Believes He Won A Landslide In 2016
President Donald Trump launched his re-election campaign Tuesday and MSNBC’s Morning Joe was quick to point that he made no attempt to appeal to new voters. Trump doubled down on his talking points, even attacking Hillary Clinton – a strategy the Morning Joe panel doubted could win him the White House again.
“Donald Trump is right in his analysis of Republicans,” host Joe Scarborough said. “They have actually become stronger Trump supporters because of the Mueller probe, but he’s been playing what I’ve been saying is a 33% game.”
“It’s more of a 38, 39% game which is continuing to talk about illegal immigration, continuing to exaggerate, continuing to demonize immigrants, continuing to demonize Americans that are, quote ‘the others’, continuing to talk about building walls, continuing to go attack allies across the globe.”
“It’s what remains the great mystery of the Trump presidency for me. Why has he never figured out, why has no one around him ever figured out that he needs to expand his base? He needs to do things, and this illegal immigrant witch hunt that he’s doing just doesn’t work because college educated people know that before he became president, illegal crossings at the southern border were at a 50 year low.”
“So that doesn’t work for educated voters. I just remained flummoxed that even at this late day, this guy is not trying to get to 50%. He’s going back to the well and just digging down deeper into his own base.”
“If you think about the totality of the Trump presidency so far, this has been a signal feature of it, right, which is like unlike any presidents in the past, we’ve seen others that have been elected with having lost the popular vote,” Heilemann said.
“We’ve seen others that have been elected well south of 50% of the vote. Normally what you do in that circumstance is you come in and say I need more votes if I’m going to get reelected.”
“Part of it has to do with the fact that unlike the rest of us, he doesn’t realize he pulled an inside straight. He thinks he won a landslide in 2016. He talks about it over and over again. I think he believes that.”
“And so he thinks if I just do again what I did in 2016, I’ll win again because he doesn’t think it was that close. He doesn’t get it, for whatever reason,” Heilemann said.
“And I take him at his word, he’s said over and over again: greatest landslide in history. I believe thinks that.”
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
