Former President Donald Trump made a claim on Wednesday that was wild by even his lofty standards. He said he would’ve not only defeated an undead George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in an election, but would’ve wiped them out in a historic landslide.
Speaking at the Hispanic Leadership Conference in Miami, Trump said:
“I remember a very famous pollster, very well known, John McLaughlin, came to my office just prior to the plague coming and he said, ‘Sir, if George Washington and Abraham Lincoln came alive from the dead and they formed a president-vice president team, you would beat them by 40 percent.’ That’s how good our numbers were.”
Notably, Trump did not mention the condition of the zombie presidents in this wild scenario, which would mean a 70-30 landslide victory by Trump:
Good to see Donald Trump is as humble as ever:
“A very famous pollster … said, ‘Sir, if George Washington and Abraham Lincoln came alive from the dead and they formed a president-vice president team, you would beat them by 40%.’” pic.twitter.com/pd3251y7NH
In the most recent C-SPAN survey of historians about who was the best commander-in-chief, Lincoln was ranked first and Washington second while Trump finished third to last (behind Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan).
However, Trump might have a case in one sense: Among Republicans, such a race might be close.
In 2019, a Monmouth University poll asked Americans to choose between Washington and Trump. Just 15 percent chose Trump. But among Republicans, Trump’s numbers surged. Although Washington still would’ve won the hypothetical race, it would’ve been by a close margin, with 44 percent choosing the Founding Father vs. 37 percent for Trump.
Trump has had an on-and-off fixation with favorably comparing himself to the nation’s greatest presidents. In 2020, Trump claimed he had “done more for Black Americans than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln,” something he had said several times previously as well.
Last year, he told the story of being able to defeat a Washington-Lincoln tag team, but didn’t include the supposed quote from a pollster.
“I think it would be hard if George Washington came back from the dead and he chose Abraham Lincoln as his vice-president, I think it would have been very hard for them to beat me,” Trump told Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig for their book, I Alone Can Fix It.
Twitter users mocked Trump over this latest version of the claim:
A big strong pollster with tears in his eyes, he said “Mr. President, sir ….”
hate to say it but he’s right. while americans admire washington and lincoln, they would have questions about the leadership capabilities of undead ghouls reanimated by dark magic or forbidden science https://t.co/yIkkjED3AL
poor Trump he wants to be one of the “great” presidents so badly. and yet he is ranked as “calamitous” and as a twice impeached president who launched a coup, he shall always be seen as calamitous. https://t.co/M4PyuHhV8F
He couldn’t get a majority in 2016 or 2020, and his polling numbers from 2016-2020 were shit. So this is what you call delusion, https://t.co/kLtWDzbhGC
— HawaiiDelilah™ is a Citizen Patriot (@HawaiiDelilah) October 5, 2022
About half of the American public has heard little or nothing about the new COVID-19 bivalent booster, a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation has found. The new booster targets the omicron variants that have become dominant around the world.
One in five of those surveyed said they had heard “nothing at all” about the new boosters. Some 17% said they had heard “a lot” about the boosters, while 33% said they had heard “some” about the new shots. About a third said they’d already gotten the new booster or intended to do so as soon as possible.
“Intention is somewhat higher among older adults, one of the groups most at risk for serious complications of a coronavirus infection,” the authors wrote. “Almost half (45%) of adults ages 65 and older say they have gotten the bivalent booster or intend to get it ‘as soon as possible.’”
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
The news will likely disappoint health experts who cheered the regulatory authorization of the new boosters in August. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency-use authorization to boosters developed by Moderna MRNA, +1.36%
and by Pfizer PFE, -0.07%
and German partner BioNTech BNTX, +1.53%
for use in people aged 12 and older who have had an initial series of a COVID vaccine, including those who have already had one or more booster doses.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that all adults get one of the bivalent boosters at least two months after completing a primary series of shots. So far, some 7.6 million people in the U.S. have received it, according to the CDC.
Once again, the country’s partisan divide is evident, with 6 in 10 Democrats saying they’ve already had the shot or will get it soon, compared with 1 in 8 Republicans.
“Notably, 20% of Republicans say they will ‘definitely not’ get the new COVID-19 booster dose, while a further 38% of Republicans are unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated and therefore not eligible for the new updated COVID-19 booster dose,” the survey authors said.
In the U.S., known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people are testing at home, where data are not being collected.
The daily average for new cases stood at 47,569 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 26% from two weeks ago and now at the lowest level since late April. Cases are rising in 14 states and are sharply higher in several. Montana leads the count with a 75% rise in the last two weeks, followed by Washington with a 48% rise. Cases are up by double digits in Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and New Jersey.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 13% to 28,639, while the daily average for deaths was down 11% to 407.
The new bivalent vaccine might be the first step in developing annual COVID shots, which could follow a similar process to the one used to update flu vaccines every year. Here’s what that process looks like, and why applying it to COVID could be challenging. Illustration: Ryan Trefes
• The U.K. is the only G-7 country whose economy is smaller now than before the pandemic, the Guardian reported, citing data released Friday by the Office for National Statistics. The ONS released figures showing that rather than the economy being 0.6% larger than it was in February 2020, a combination of a deeper recession during the pandemic and a weak recovery had left it 0.2% smaller. All the other major economies in the G-7, including France and Italy, recovered strongly enough to be larger than they were in February 2020.
• Taiwan is the latest country to end mandatory COVID quarantines for people arriving from overseas, the Associated Press reported. Officials said that beginning Oct. 13, the previous weeklong quarantine requirement would be replaced with a seven-day self-monitoring period. A rapid antigen test will still be required upon arrival, but people showing no symptoms will be allowed to take public transportation.
• Germany’s health ministry is warning of a rise of COVID cases heading into the fall and is urging older people in particular to get a second booster shot, the AP reported separately. Other European countries such as France, Denmark and the Netherlands are also recording an increase in cases, German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach told reporters in Berlin. “We are clearly at the start of a winter wave,” he said.
COVID-19 lockdowns, corruption crackdowns and more have put China’s economy on a potential crash course with the U.S. and the rest of the world, the Wall Street Journal’s Dion Rabouin explains. Illustration: David Fang
• The first Chinese mRNA-based COVID vaccine has received government approval — in Indonesia, the New York Times reported. The shot, developed by Walvax Biotechnology 300142, +0.49%,
Suzhou Abogen Biosciences and the Chinese military, was cleared this week by Indonesia for emergency use. Countries all over the world, including Indonesia, have embraced mRNA vaccines, and they are considered among the most effective vaccines that the world has to offer. But more than two years into the pandemic, they are not yet available in China, which has relied on an increasingly draconian “zero-COVID” approach to keep cases and deaths from the virus low.
• Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and a supporter of Russia’s war on Ukraine, has tested positive for COVID-19, the church’s press service said on Friday, Reuters reported. The church said Kirill, 75, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had canceled all his planned trips and events and had “severe symptoms” requiring bed rest and isolation. It said his condition was “satisfactory.”
The U.S. leads the world with 96.3 million cases and 1,059,291 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 225.3 million people living in the U.S., equal to 67.9% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 109.9 million have had a booster, equal to 48.8% of the vaccinated population, and 23.9 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 36.6% of those who received a first booster.
