“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”
Donald Trump has made a good living as a traveling salesman, hawking everything from skyscrapers to deodorant. But his best-selling product has always been himself.
Nothing — not his cheap made-in-China ties, not his thousand-dollar steaks, not his Trump Ice Natural Spring Water, or his fraudulent non-accredited Trump University — ever sold as well as he sold himself to millions of American voters who never minded that he was a scam artist, a grifter and a liar.
And even now, after we’ve seen the man behind the curtain, Trump is still selling himself as the great and powerful Wizard of Oz.
We know, of course, that there’s never anything there. Trump is full of empty promises and gimmicks, cheap tricks, and smoke and mirrors.
But after Trump was indicted for the fourth time this year on 13 felony charges for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, Trump did what he does best — he promoted a brand-new fraudulent product.
It’s not a mattress, a vodka or a cologne. It’s not eyeglasses, real estate seminars or light fixtures. It’s not a new hotel or a bankrupt casino.
This time it’s a “Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia.”
Trump announced the hot new item not on QVC or the Home Shopping Network but in an unhinged rant on Truth Social — itself a troubled Trump business product facing financial uncertainty.
“Based on the results of this CONCLUSIVE Report, all charges should be dropped against me & others – There will be a complete EXONERATION!” he promised.
But wait — there’s more! “They never went after those that Rigged the Election. They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!”
So, when and where can you buy this one-of-a-kind, must-have, set-it-and-forget-it report, you ask? “…at a major News Conference at 11:00 A.M. on Monday of next week in Bedminster, New Jersey.”
Now, before you say, “That sounds too good to be true,” let me assure you — it is!
Republican-led audits in Georgia and elsewhere have found no evidence of widespread fraud, and zero proof that the election was “stolen” from Trump or “rigged” against him.
It’s also more than a little implausible that Trump would have held on to this “CONCLUSIVE” report for nearly three years, withholding “irrefutable” evidence that he is the victim of election rigging, when he’s been trying to sell America on this very lie since 2020.
Finally, the charges against Trump here are very specific: violation of the Georgia RICO Act, filing false documents, false statements and writings, solicitation of violation of oath by public officer, conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree, conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, and conspiracy to commit filing false documents.
I’m guessing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ evidence is probably stronger than Trump’s super-secret, ultimate, collapsing, three-in-one, as-seen-on-TV Exoneration Report.
This is vintage Trump.
Remember back in November of 2020, just a few days after the election, Trump dispatched Rudy Giuliani — also a named defendant in this indictment — for a “Big press conference today in Philadelphia at Four Seasons, Philadelphia.” Except Trump confused the luxury hotel with Four Seasons Total Landscaping, where Giuliani shared baseless conspiracy theories about nonexistent voting irregularities with slightly bemused reporters.
Giuliani has also done this before, promising over and over again in 2018 to release a “counter-report” to delegitimize Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation — which never manifested.
Then, of course, there was Trump’s years-long sales pitch of Obama’s “fraudulent” birth certificate, which, he promised, would show he wasn’t born in America.
From 2011 to 2016, primarily on Fox News and Twitter, Trump promoted his baseless “theories” that Obama was born somewhere other than Hawaii, and claimed he would prove it. Except, he never did, instead quietly conceding in 2016 that Obama was in fact born in the U.S.
Like the emperor’s new clothes, Trump sells his lies to unwitting customers who shell out their hard-earned dollars for his gimmicks. Literally.
Whether he’s bilking his voters with fine-print scams to set up recurring donations without their knowledge, or diverting donations meant to combat “election fraud” to his own aides, assistants and Melania’s fashion adviser, or using the Republican Party as his personal legal defense fund piggy bank, Trump sells himself by taking from everyone else.
We’ll see on Monday what Trump’s actually selling this time, but whatever it is, I’m betting it will be going, going, gone before you can say “fettuccine, linguine, martini, bikini.”
S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.
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