By:
June 4, 2021

Earlier this week, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted, “Trump has been telling a number of people he’s in contact with that he expects he will get reinstated by August (no that isn’t how it works but simply sharing the information).”

Haberman was criticized (as she often is) by many — and I still don’t understand why because she has proven to be a top-notch reporter. Most of the unfair criticism comes from those who are unhappy with her message so they blame the messenger.

Either way, it was interesting to see National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke write, “Maggie Haberman is right.”

Cooke wrote, “I can attest, from speaking to an array of different sources, that Donald Trump does indeed believe quite genuinely that he — along with former senators David Perdue and Martha McSally — will be ‘reinstated’ to office this summer after ‘audits’ of the 2020 elections in Arizona, Georgia, and a handful of other states have been completed. I can attest, too, that Trump is trying hard to recruit journalists, politicians, and other influential figures to promulgate this belief — not as a fundraising tool or an infantile bit of trolling or a trial balloon, but as a fact.”

Of course, Trump is not going to be “reinstated.” But, Cooke writes, “The scale of Trump’s delusion is quite startling. This is not merely an eccentric interpretation of the facts or an interesting foible, nor is it an irrelevant example of anguished post-presidency chatter. It is a rejection of reality, a rejection of law, and, ultimately, a rejection of the entire system of American government.”

Meanwhile, in an appearance on CNN, Alisyn Camerota asked former House speaker and Republican John Boehner if it’s possible we will see another attack like we saw on Jan. 6.

Boehner said no.

When Camerota asked why, Boehner said, “Listen, there’s some people who might believe the president and his musings, but most people in America are pretty rational about what happened. They’ve seen the evidence like I have, like you have. This doesn’t appear to me that he has that kind of support going forward.”

This piece originally appeared in The Poynter Report, our daily newsletter for everyone who cares about the media. Subscribe to The Poynter Report here.

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Tom Jones is Poynter’s senior media writer for Poynter.org. He was previously part of the Tampa Bay Times family during three stints over some 30…
Tom Jones

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