The hosts of ABC’s Good Morning America said they were ‘shocked’ by how dark Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric has been in the final 48 hours before Election Day.
Among other things, Trump has said he shouldn’t have left the White House in 2021, and accused the Democrats of ‘cheating’ in elections.
George Stephanopoulos compared how Trump and Kamala Harris have been addressing voters on the stump and professed his belief that the more ‘hopeful’ candidate usually wins.
‘One thing that’s been pretty consistent over the last week…is we saw Donald Trump’s message – pretty dark, pretty pessimistic,’ Stephanopoulos said on the Monday morning panel.
‘At least in the last day, Kamala Harris is coming out much more hopeful and optimistic. A fundamental tenet of modern American politics: the more hopeful, optimistic candidate wins. If Donald Trump pulls this out, it’s really testing that.’
Pictured: A panel of five on Good Morning America discussed the state of the race on Monday, coming to the conclusion that Donald Trump is on a path of negativity
Former President Donald Trump is pictured at a rally on Sunday in Macon, Georgia. Joe Biden won Georgia in 2020 by 12,670 votes
ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl also appeared on the panel, and even he, who has been covering Trump for years, said he was ‘shocked’ by some of the things he heard from the former president.
‘Donald Trump has gone incredibly dark, even in ways that have frankly shocked me. When he said yesterday – invoked the idea of shooting through reporters and he wouldn’t mind that, we’ve reached a new level,’ Karl said.
He was referring to Trump’s rant at a rally in Pennsylvania which included a joke about an assassin having to shoot through reporters to get him.
‘To get me somebody would have to shoot through the fake news, and I don’t mind that so much – I don’t mind,’ he said with a chuckle.
One of Karl’s topline takeaways was that the campaign has been ‘intensely negative’ in tone from both sides.
‘It tests so much of what we think we know about politics if Trump wins, both that and in terms of the ground game,’ Karl said. ‘Look, this has been an intensely negative campaign all around. It’s the “end of democracy” versus “the end of our country as we know it.”‘
Jonathan Karl, pictured, shared some insights about his Sunday phone call with Trump with the panel. They discussed the state of the race, Trump’s messaging and whether or not he thinks he could lose
George Stephanopoulos called Vice President Kamala Harris the more hopeful, optimistic candidate when compared to Trump
Karl also shared some insights about his Sunday phone call with Trump, where the two talked about how the campaign was going.
‘I spoke to him early, his voice sounded weary, a little scratchy, he’s got this unbelievably packed campaign schedule,’ he said, adding that Trump said he thinks he’s ‘leading everywhere.’
Karl said Trump hadn’t seen the final poll done by The New York Times that had him trailing Harris in four critical swing states: Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
That poll also showed Trump with a lead in Arizona, while the two were tied in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
‘But he did acknowledge to me something that I’ve never heard him acknowledge before,’ Karl said. ‘I asked him, “Is there any way you could lose?” And he said, “Yeah, I guess you could lose. Bad things could happen.”‘
According to Karl, Trump bristled at his advisors, some of whom have been saying he hasn’t been hammering home the key issues of the campaign in his speeches.
‘The other thing is, he took issue with the notion that he’s been off-message, which some of his top advisors are worried about. He’s been all over the map in his speeches, all the negativity, not focusing on the core economic issues that they say he should be focused on,’ Karl said.
Trump reportedly told Karl that all he’s doing is employing what he calls ‘the weave,’ which is when he goes on tangents but eventually brings it back to the topic at hand.
‘He told me the weave got me elected president, and we saw it continue yesterday,’ Karl said.
Stephanopoulos, though agreeing with much of Karl’s reporting, played devil’s advocate, saying there could be a reason Trump is using eye-catching rhetoric in the final days
Another panelist pointed out that Trump is most likely the most concerned about North Carolina, since he’s been visiting it so often (Trump is pictured at a rally Sunday in Kinston, North Carolina)
Stephanopoulos played devil’s advocate, saying there ‘is some strategy’ in playing toward one’s most ardent political base.
‘We just heard Jon [Karl] say it’s not exactly what the campaign wants Donald Trump to be doing, but there is some strategy behind it – trying to drive out angry, young men,’ Stephanopoulos said.
Rachel Scott, another ABC correspondent, agreed and pointed to the fact that Trump has been going on a podcast blitz in recent months, a medium thought by the campaign to be more frequently enjoyed by young men.
Scott also said Trump could be most concerned about North Carolina, since he pledged on Saturday he would visit the state every day until Election Day.
North Carolina was the only swing state Trump won in both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
The New York Times poll had Harris beating Trump by two percentage points in the state, though it was well within the margin of error.
A Morning Consult poll had Trump up by two, though that result was also within the margin of error.
The final DailyMail.com/J.L. Partners national poll before Election Day showed Trump overtaking Harris by three percentage points nationally.
The poll of 1,000 likely voters, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent, shows that Trump is trending up, with the support of 49 percent to Harris’ 46 percent.
