WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump sought to reassure campaign staff in a Monday morning phone call that public polling is incorrect, his campaign is in the "best shape" it has ever been and he is going to win the election.
He also downplayed reports of strain among top campaign officials and showed anger against Dr. Anthony Fauci, calling him "a disaster," and saying that more Americans would have died from the coronavirus if he had followed the advice of the top infectious disease expert who is a member of his coronavirus task force.
Waking up on the West Coast and reacting to coverage of his campaign in chaos, a furious Trump told his staff to keep working hard and not to read the newspaper in the home stretch.
"We're going to win. I wouldn't have said that three weeks ago," said Trump of the time period in which he learned he had contracted the coronavirus and was hospitalized. "Three weeks ago, two weeks ago, I don't know, I wouldn't have said it. It was tougher for me."
Trump told aides that he feels better about where he is now than he did four years ago and denied that there is a division between himself and party and campaign officials. He insisted from Las Vegas that his campaign was in the "best shape" that it had ever been in and he was happy with his leadership team.
Trump said his relationship with campaign manager Bill Stepien, who led the call, senior adviser Jason Miller and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel was "phenomenal."
Responding to reports that those relationships were strained, he said, "It's all bulls(ASTERISK)(ASTERISK)t."
Trump said that he is not displeased with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, either, and does not regret bringing the former North Carolina congressman on board. Trump was said to have been irritated with Meadows for portraying his health as less rosy than the comments by his physician when he was hospitalized.
"I love Mark Meadows. He's the best thing that's happened. The guy is fantastic," Trump said on the call. "I have tremendous confidence. It was a great move. It took me two years to get him out of Congress."
Trump did vent about one official during the call, Fauci, who he again criticized for advising against widespread mask-wearing early in the pandemic.
Fauci said in a Sunday evening appearance on "60 Minutes" that he was not surprised that Trump caught the coronavirus and was infuriated by an advertisement for the president's reelection campaign that suggested he had endorsed Trump.
"People are tired of COVID. I have the biggest rallies I've ever had and we have COVID. People are saying whatever. Just leave us alone. They're tired of it," Trump said. "People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots. These people. These people that have gotten it wrong."
He added, "And yet we keep him. Every time he goes on television there's always a bomb. But there's a bigger bomb if you fire him. But Fauci's a disaster."
Trump said he gets along with Fauci, whom he described as a "nice guy" who had been in government "for 500 years," but added, "if we'd listened to him, we'd have 700 _ 800,000 deaths right now."
Disputing a report that Trump disparaged veterans, which formed the basis for an ad for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Trump said he never called veterans "suckers and losers" and would be filing a complaint with election authorities.
"That was never said," Trump told staff. "And I saw a commercial on it yesterday, I blew my stack."
Trump argued during the call that he is ahead in key battleground states.
"We're winning in Arizona, we're winning in Florida, right now, we're winning in Florida by three, maybe even four," he said. "Pennsylvania is even."
He pointed to early vote totals and the size of crowds at campaign rallies, which he said attracted as many as 30,000 people in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
"These aren't poll numbers anymore. This is where people are coming in, and online, and sending in mail ballots, which are not enough for them to win," he said of Democrats.
Trump said he would be in Nevada for three or four more rallies, and two rallies in Arizona on Monday would "put Arizona away." He said he would be traveling to New Mexico and Minnesota _ two states he did not win four years ago _ because he still believes he can expand his electoral footprint. "We're going to give it a shot."
North Carolina and Florida are also shaping up to go his way, Trump said.
"I don't want to say we've got anything, but we literally should have North Carolina. That's a very big one. You run up the coast, we're going to get Florida, we're going to get South Carolina," he said. "Georgia, we're doing very well on. Very, very well. The real polls I'm not talking about the fake polls. But even the fake polls have it."
The president conceded that he had been losing his 2016 campaign "until the last day," but said that was not the case now.
"We are going to win. We are leading right now. If a poll _ if an election were held today, we win the election," Trump said. "But where we have states that are sort of tippy, could go either way, I have an ability to go to those states and rally."
He argued to staff that "cheating" is the only way he would lose, directing them to call the police if they saw anything inappropriate
"Keep your eyes open and report them to law enforcement at the strongest level. And we have law enforcement watching. We have U.S. attorneys, sheriffs. Everybody is watching," he said. "Postal inspectors hopefully are also watching."
After the president left the call, Brock McCleary, a pollster for the campaign, said that internal polling shows the president's standing improving in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and other battleground states.
He referred to a memo that Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon sent to the Democrat's supporters on Sunday that warned of a tight race and against voter complacency.
"That's what's got the Biden campaign sweating no doubt. They learned one thing, we all learned one thing from four years ago. The most important fact about this election is that this president is a closer," he said. "History sure seems to be begging to repeat itself."
