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 should not have left the White House in 2021 and has accused Democrats of “cheating” in the election.
George Stephanopoulos compared how Trump and Kamala Harris have spoken to voters and professed his belief that the more “hopeful” candidate usually wins.
“One thing that’s been pretty consistent over the last week… is that we saw Donald Trump’s message: pretty dark, pretty pessimistic,” Stephanopoulos said on Monday morning’s panel.
‘At least on the last day, Kamala Harris is coming out much more hopeful and optimistic. A fundamental principle of modern American politics: the most hopeful and optimistic candidate wins. “If Donald Trump brings this to light, he will really be testing it.”
Pictured: A five-person panel on Good Morning America discussed the state of the race Monday and concluded that Donald Trump is on a path of negativity.
Former President Donald Trump appears at a rally 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 ‘surprised’ by some of the things he heard from the former president.
‘Donald Trump has become incredibly dark, even in ways that have frankly shocked me. “When he said yesterday: he mentioned the idea of shooting journalists and he wouldn’t care, we have reached a new level,” Karl said.
He was referring to Trump’s rant at a rally in Pennsylvania that included a joke about a killer who had to shoot at reporters to catch him.
“To catch me, someone would have to leak the fake news, and I don’t care that much about that, I don’t care,” he said with a smile.
One of Karl’s main takeaways was that the campaign has had an “intensely negative” tone from both sides.
“If Trump wins, it challenges a lot of what we think we know about politics, both in that and in terms of the running game,” Karl said. ‘Look, this has been an intensely negative campaign everywhere. It’s the “end of democracy” versus “the end of our country as we know it.”
Jonathan Karl, pictured, shared with the panel some insights from his Sunday phone call with Trump. They discussed the state of the race, Trump’s messages and whether or not he thinks he could lose.
George Stephanopoulos called Vice President Kamala Harris the more hopeful and optimistic candidate compared to Trump.
Karl also shared some insights from his Sunday phone call with Trump, where the two talked about how the campaign was going.
“I talked to him early, his voice sounded tired, a little rough, he has an incredibly packed campaign schedule,” she said, adding that Trump said he believes he is “leading everywhere.”
Karl said Trump had not seen the final poll conducted by The New York Times that put him behind Harris in four critical 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 acknowledged something to me that I had never heard him acknowledge before,” Karl said. “I asked him, ‘Is there any way you can lose?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I guess you could lose.’ “Bad things could happen.”
According to Karl, Trump became angry with his advisers, some of whom have said that he has not pressed key campaign themes in his speeches.
“The other thing is that he took issue with the idea that he was wrong, something that worries some of his top advisers. “It’s been all over the place in his speeches, all the negativity, not focusing on the core economic issues that they say he should be focusing on,” Karl said.
Trump reportedly told Karl that all he’s doing is employing what he calls “the weave,” which is when he goes off on a tangent but eventually gets back to the topic at hand.
“He told me that knitting got me elected president and yesterday we saw it continue,” Karl said.
Stephanopoulos, while agreeing with much of Karl’s reporting, acted as devil’s advocate and said there might be a reason Trump is using flashy rhetoric in recent days.
Another panelist noted that Trump is probably the most concerned about North Carolina, since he has been visiting so frequently (Trump appears at a rally Sunday in Kinston, North Carolina).
Stephanopoulos acted as devil’s advocate, saying that “there is some strategy” in playing against one’s most ardent political base.
“We just heard Jon (Karl) say it’s not exactly what the campaign wants Donald Trump to do, but there’s some strategy behind it: trying to oust angry young people,” Stephanopoulos said.
Rachel Scott, another ABC correspondent, agreed, pointing to the fact that Trump has been launching a podcast blitz in recent months, a medium the campaign says is most often enjoyed by young men.
Scott also said Trump might be more concerned about North Carolina, as he promised Saturday that he would visit the state every day until Election Day.
North Carolina was the only swing state Trump won in his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
The New York Times poll showed Harris beating Trump by two percentage points in the state, although it was within the margin of error.
A Morning Consult poll gave Trump a lead of two, although that result was also within the margin of error.
The final DailyMail.com/JL Partners national poll before Election Day showed Trump leading Harris by three percentage points nationally.
The survey of 1,000 likely voters, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent, shows Trump trending upward, with support at 49 percent to Harris’ 46 percent.
