The saying “hindsight is 20/20” took on new meaning as President Donald Trump claimed his poll numbers were so good in 2020, he would have beaten two admired dead presidents — George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Trump spoke at the Kennedy Center Wednesday when he said all was looking good for him to win the 2020 election until COVID-19 hit, according to Mediaite.
The president said he’d l met with pollsters right before learning of deaths in China from COVID.
“We did a great job with Covid, but that was a horrible thing for the whole world,” Trump said. “The whole world suffered. Your countries suffered. Everybody suffered.”
Trump boasted about the “great” economy prior to the pandemic and he had been almost assured of a victory in the election.
“I’ll never forget, I met with pollsters the day before I got the news about COVID. But I met two pollsters because we were starting to think about the next election,” Trump said. “They said, sir, if George Washington and Abraham Lincoln came back from the dead and they aligned, and they went for the president, vice president as a combination, you’d be beating them by 25 points.”
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“And then the next day I was told that something strange is happening. There’s a lot of death being reported in a certain country. I won’t tell you which one because that country is well represented here,” Trump continued. “But you know which one. And thousands and thousands of people are dying. And I said, that’s strange. What would that be? And it turned out to be a disaster for the world.”
Ironically, Trump chose the 162nd anniversary of the Gettysburg Address given by Lincoln to proclaim he could beat him for president.
The famed Gettysburg Address was given during a formal dedication of Soldiers’ National Cemetery, which is now known as Gettysburg National Cemetery. The Battle ok Gettysburg is touted as the turning point is the American Civil War.
Trump remains steadfast in his claim that former President Joe Biden’s 2020 win was fraudulent ever thought there was no proof.
Trump has referred to beating Washington and Lincoln before, but the percentage by which he would have supposedly beat them has changed.
“I remember a very famous pollster, very well known, John McLaughlin came to my office just prior to the plague coming and he said, ‘Sir, if George Washington and Abraham Lincoln came alive from the dead and they formed a president-vice president team, you would beat them by 40%,’” the president said in 2022 at the Hispanic Leadership Conference.
