“When he wins, he’s going to say so”

President Donald Trump will reportedly declare victory on election night before getting the necessary 270 electoral votes — if it looks like he’s ahead.

Sources closes to the president told Axios correspondent Jonathan Swan that Trump is expecting to take an early lead in Pennsylvania, although Democratic nominee Joe Biden may pull ahead as more votes are counted.

“Trump has privately talked through this scenario in some detail in the last few weeks, describing plans to walk up to a podium on election night and declare he has won,” the report said.

In recent weeks, Trump has falsely signaled that votes counted after Election Day are fraudulent.

“This is nothing but people trying to create doubt about a Trump victory,” Trump communications director Tim Murtaugh told Axios. “When he wins, he’s going to say so.”

According to Swan, Trump insiders “are more optimistic about winning than they were three weeks ago.”

“They said analyses of early-vote totals in battleground states indicate he’s doing substantially worse in Iowa and Georgia compared with this point in 2016, but better than expected in Texas, Nevada, North Carolina, Arizona and Wisconsin,” Swan wrote. “In recent days, senior Trump advisers have privately expressed growing optimism about Wisconsin, based on their analysis of early vote data.”

Related –
Another White House Superspreader Event: Trump to ‘Celebrate’ Election Night With Hundreds in Huge East Room Party

President Donald Trump will be celebrating Election Day evening with hundreds of supporters invited to a party at the White House East Room, in yet another display of erasing the line between politics and governing, and ignoring CDC coronavirus guidance on gatherings and masks.

The New York Times‘s Maggie Haberman on Sunday reports Trump “aides are discussing inviting roughly 400 people.”

The President had planned to watch the results from his Trump Hotel at the Old Post Office, but Washington, D.C. laws prohibit gatherings of more than 50 people during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A study this week found 18 of Trump’s recent rallies are directly responsible for 700 coronavirus deaths and 30,000 new COVID-19 cases.

According to a report from Politico, Donald Trump is drawing up a list of White House officials and cabinet members he plans to oust should he manage to win re-election on November 3rd.

While the president is scrambling around the battleground states to boost turnout in what could be a close election, he is also making plans for a possible win that will lead to a purge of “key health-related and intelligence jobs who Trump views as disloyal, slow-acting or naysayers.”

While it has been previously reported that the president is considering firing FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel, Politico reports the list is growing longer as the president becomes angrier over his campaign woes.

“The shift would amount to a purge of any Cabinet member who has crossed the president, refused to mount investigations he has demanded, or urged him to take a different, more strict tack on the coronavirus response,” Politico’s Nancy Cook wrote. “The evictions could run the gamut from senior health officials to much of the national security leadership. Already, the White House and administration officials have started to vet names of health care experts who could take over the agencies running many elements of the government’s pandemic response and overseeing the country’s health insurance system, according to two Republicans close to the White House.”

Possibly headed for the chopping block is “HHS Secretary Alex Azar, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention head Robert Redfield, National Institutes of Health head Francis Collins and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services head Seema Verma,” the report states.

“FBI Director Chris Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Defense Secretary Mark Esper are potentially in the crosshairs. Trump is angry with Wray and Haspel for not investigating his claims, made without any concrete evidence, that the Obama White House conspired against him and his 2016 campaign,” Politico reports.

According to a Republican insider with ties to the White House, “I can only imagine the score-settling Trump would undertake if he won.”

Trump critic Chris Lu agreed, adding, “If Trump wins, he will feel vindicated and liberated, he will stack his Cabinet even more with loyalists.”

“There has been a lot of turnover in the Cabinet, but the power has always been concentrated in the White House the whole time,” claimed another White House insider. “The nucleus of the White House will remain status quo, while there will be changes on the periphery.”

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