Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said the tone of the news media’s post-final debate coverage suggests many or most reporters and commentators must have thought Republican Donald Trump was on his way to winning the election.
National coverage of the debate, held Wednesday night in Las Vegas, has mostly focused critically on Trump declining to outright say he would accept a losing result of the election, instead saying he would “look at it” when the time comes. But Trump is widely expected to lose on Nov. 8, which should make Trump’s remark less important, not more important.
“They’re acting like last night Trump was winning,” Limbaugh said Thursday on his show. “In order for them to have any credibility [on] what they’re saying about Trump’s debate performance last night, you have to believe they thought Trump was on the way to winning last night.”
He said since Trump launched his campaign in summer 2015, the news media at large have said the GOP nominee was doomed to fail. He said their insistence now that his comment about the election was catastrophic to his campaign means they must have thought he had a chance to succeed.
“I thought,” Limbaugh said, “actually maybe I had missed two or three weeks of the campaign because these guys were acting like Trump was actually going to win the election last night until he answered that fateful question from [moderator] Chris Wallace and then he blew it all. … Was he cruising to victory and that one answer has shattered everything?”
At the debate, Wallace asked Trump, who has been telling supporters the election is “rigged” in favor of Democrat Hillary Clinton, if he would accept the outcome of the election if he were to lose.
“I will tell you at the time,” Trump answered. “I’ll keep you in suspense.”
The Associated Press said Trump’s refusal to say he would concede the legitimacy of a loss “threaten[ed] to upend a fundamental pillar of American democracy.”
