☕ Hello, Saturday. Today's Smart Brevity™ count: 1,472 words ... 5½ minutes.
☕ Hello, Saturday. Today's Smart Brevity™ count: 1,472 words ... 5½ minutes.
Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
President Trump started choreographing election night in early October, including acting out a premature victory speech, Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu report in Episode 1 of "Off the rails," an Axios series taking you inside a president's collapse.
"Jared, you call the Murdochs! Jason, you call Sammon and Hemmer!”
“And anyone else — anyone else who will take the call," he said. “Tell these guys they got to change it, they got it wrong. It’s way too early. Not even CNN is calling it.”
For weeks, Trump had been laying the groundwork to declare victory on election night — even if he lost. But the real-time results, punctuated by a shocking call by Fox upended his plans and began his unraveling.
The big picture: Over the next two months, Trump took the nation down with him as he descended into denial, despair and a reckless revenge streak that fueled a deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol by his backers seeking to overturn the election.
"Off the rails," Episode 1, continues...
Trump preparations for election night were deliberate, strategic and deeply cynical. Trump wanted Americans to believe a falsehood that there were two elections — a legitimate election composed of in-person voting, and a separate, fraudulent election involving bogus mail-in ballots for Democrats.
But as Bill Hemmer narrated a live "what if" scenario on his election telestrator from Studio F of Fox’s gargantuan Manhattan headquarters, the anchor sounded confused. "What is this happening here? Why is Arizona blue?" he asked on camera, prodding the state's outline on the touch screen, unable to flip its color.
Trump was steaming. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, chief of staff Mark Meadows, campaign manager Bill Stepien, senior strategist Jason Miller, and data cruncher Matt Oczkowski took the elevator up to the third floor.
About 200 guests — donors, Cabinet secretaries, White House physician Sean Conley, TV boosters Diamond and Silk, and other VIPs — gathered in the East Room for the official election night party. They munched on beef sliders.
Trump started choreographing election night in earnest during the second week of October, as he recovered from COVID-19.
"Off the rails," Episode 1, continues...
Stephen Miller's speechwriting team had prepared three skeleton speeches for election night for all the possible scenarios: a clear victory, a clear loss and an indeterminate result.
The top officials tried to pressure Fox to retract its Arizona call. Kushner called Rupert Murdoch, who said he'd see what was going on. The Trump campaign's senior-most officials aggressively texted anchors MacCallum and Baier.
It was shortly after 1 a.m. on Nov. 4 when Trump finally came down from his living quarters. The speechwriters sent their final draft to Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator, stationed at his laptop in a small room adjoining the East Room.
At 2:20 a.m., maskless aides and supporters in the East Room held up cellphones to record Trump, the first lady, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife walking out to waiting cameras as "Hail to the Chief" played.
📱Go deeper: Read the whole fly-on-the-wall episode in the Axios stream.
🎧 Axios premiers a new podcast series on Monday, "How it happened," featuring Jonathan Swan and "Off the rails." Subscribe to "Axios Today" to catch the first episode as soon as it drops.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Tech companies are sharing more information with law enforcement in a frantic effort to prevent violence around the inauguration, Axios' Margaret Harding McGill and Sara Fischer report.
Facebook yesterday announced new measures aimed at preventing people from using its platform to foment violence.
What we're hearing: Some companies, including Facebook and Twitter, have briefed the Hill on recent talks they've had with law enforcement.
Firearms background checks in the U.S. hit a record high in 2020, Axios Future author Bryan Walsh reports.
Almost 40 million firearms background checks were processed in 2020 — by far the most since the FBI began keeping records in 1998.
Between the lines: Past spikes in firearms sales were prompted by fears of tightening gun control laws — usually in the aftermath of a mass shooting event or the election of liberal Democrats. But 2020's surges seem to be connected to more general fears.
Michael Fisher Sr. lifts his son, Michael Fisher Jr., to dunk at the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond yesterday.
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