President-elect Donald Trump threatened to sue the Des Moines Register over pollster Ann Selzer’s inaccurate prediction that Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris would win the state of Iowa.
Trump held his first news conference at Mar-a-Lago on Monday since his Nov. 5 election victory, sitting with reporters in court for more than an hour.
He recently had success with a defamation lawsuit against ABC News about anchor George Stephanopoulos, saying that Trump had been “found liable for rape,” rather than the accurate description – that he had been found liable for sexual assault in the E. Jean Carroll -case.
Trump previewed future legal action he planned to take against the news media.
“I’m not doing this because I want to, I’m doing this because I feel obligated to do so,” Trump began.
Trump said the lawsuit would be filed Monday or Tuesday.
“I’m going to file one against the people of Iowa, their newspaper, which had a very, very good pollster, who always got it right and right before the election she said I was going to lose by three. of four points,” the new president continued.
“And it became the biggest story of all time, around the world,” an exasperated Trump said.
President-elect Donald Trump said Monday at Mar-a-Lago that he will sue the Des Moines Register over pollster Ann Selzer’s investigation that showed he lost to Vice President Kamala Harris in the Hawkeye State, which was announced Saturday before the election released.
Selzer’s latest Des Moines Register poll showed Trump trailing Harris by three points and was released the Saturday before Election Day.
It sent a ripple through the political universe, as most polls — including DailyMail.com’s — showed Trump ahead or even with Harris in swing states.
But Iowa hasn’t been considered a swing state since Trump burst onto the political scene, with the Hawkeye State edging out the Republican this time by a whopping 13.3 points.
Trump said at the news conference that he was on track to win Iowa by “20 points” when the poll was released.
“The farmers love me and I love the farmers,” he said.
Before his victory in the general election, Trump proved his strength in the state by easily defeating rival Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a former UN official. Nikki Haley and others in the Iowa caucuses in January.
Lark-Marie Anton, spokesperson for the Des Moines Register, told DailyMail.com in a statement that a lawsuit against the newspaper would be “without merit.”
“We have acknowledged that the Selzer/Des Moines Register pre-election poll did not reflect the final margin of President Trump’s election day victory in Iowa by releasing the poll’s full demographics, cross-tabulation, weighted and unweighted data , as well as a technical explanation from pollster Ann Selzer,” she said. “We stand by our reporting on this matter and believe that a lawsuit would be without merit.”
Ann Selzer, who conducted polls for the Des Moines Register, released a study the Saturday before the election that showed Trump losing the Hawkeye State to Harris. Trump ultimately won the state by 13.3 and now he wants to sue the newspaper, he said Monday
Since entering politics, Trump has had a contentious relationship with the mainstream media, but has lately been turning to the legal system to litigate his claims.
Another pending lawsuit is against CBS News and 60 Minutes for what he alleged was selective editing of the program’s sit-down with Harris.
“Where they took Kamala’s answer, which was a crazy answer, a horrible answer, and replaced it with something she said later in the interview,” Trump described Monday.
Trump refused the traditional sit-down with the CBS program Stories.
The president-elect also referenced his nearly $50 million lawsuit against Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward over the decision to publish tapes of their interviews for the audiobook of the 2020 bestseller Rage.
Trump also wants the Pulitzer Prizes of The Washington Times and The New York Times revoked over stories about the FBI’s Russia investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign.
On Monday, Trump continued to call the Russia investigation a “hoax.”