Trump responds to brutal poll numbers with deeply weird conspiracy theory

It was around this time eight years ago when The New York Times reported on an interesting chat between Donald Trump and Republican leaders ahead of the 2018 midterm election cycle.

GOP officials, taking stock of the available evidence, tried to warn the president ahead of his first midterms that the party faced significant headwinds. But it quickly became clear to them that Trump did not “grasp the gravity” of the situation.

In fact, some Republican officials tried to tell the president directly that the party’s House majority would almost certainly disappear once voters had their say. “That’s not going to happen,” Trump replied.

That’s exactly what happened. In fact, the GOP suffered their worst midterm cycle since the immediate aftermath of Watergate, the president’s bluster and optimism notwithstanding. Trump seemed to be under the impression that if he simply maintained positive thoughts and assumed that the polls were all wrong, then everything would work out fine for his fellow Republicans. Reality, however, intruded soon after.

Eight years later, the circumstances are eerily familiar. Trump is in the Oval Office again; he’s working alongside a Republican-led Congress again; the GOP is facing headwinds again, party leaders are preparing for a public backlash again — and the president refuses to believe the readily available evidence again.