Earlier this week, Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reported that former President Donald Trump believes he'll be "reinstated" as President by August, believing that continued audits of the 2020 election forced by Republican legislatures will vindicate his election conspiracy theories.
As Haberman also pointed out, this isn't how it works. What's more, the votes currently being audited in Arizona and Pennsylvania have already been counted and recounted. The results declaring President Joe Biden's victory aren't expected to change.
Nevertheless, Trump is urging journalists to repeat this fantasy as fact, according to a report from the conservative National Review confirming Haberman's reporting.
As for how Trump came to believe these delusions, pillow salesman and prominent conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell believes he was the one who inspired Trump.
Lindell is one of the few right-wing media personalities still clinging to the fantasy that Trump will be reinstated as President without being elected.
Lindell told the Daily Beast:
"If Trump is saying August, that is probably because he heard me say it publicly."
Lindell has in fact said Trump would be reinstated by August.
As Second Nexus reported back in March, Lindell told white supremacist and former Trump official Steve Bannon:
"All the evidence I have — everything is going to go before the Supreme Court and the election of 2020 is going bye-bye. It was an attack by other countries, communism coming in. I don't know what they're going to do with that after they pull it down. ... Donald Trump will be back in office in August!"
Of course, despite his insistence, Lindell has yet to provide any evidence that Trump didn't lose the election.
If Trump was inspired by Lindell's conspiracy theories—well, that kind of tracks.
Pillow jokes were made.
We can't wait to see where Lindell moves the goalpost after August.
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