These are just straight-up talking points with a question mark tacked on to the end.

"If." Haha. "If." [Pounding my head against the desk.]

I guess it's no surprise that a man who had to ask his military advisor about basic economics concepts didn't spend a lot of time designing a rigorous polling methodology. But Trump doesn't care if whatever "findings" this crock of shit eventually yields are valid or reliable. As that ominous-sounding final question suggests, his goal is not to respond to the media, but to find ways to delegitimize them, undermining whatever they might say or do. At this point, President Trump needs something to cite as proof of a massive conspiracy against him, which would in turn justify any other more serious action he might take against the press after that. If he has to resort to spoon-feeding answers in an online poll in order to get that evidence, so be it.

This plan has one flaw, of course: President Trump can bake the desired outcomes into the survey, but he can't control the pool of people who take it. This fishing expedition might have worked if he were just a candidate blasting his mailing list, but now that he's the honest-to-God president, it's not only his staunchest supporters who are motivated to respond to things like this anymore. Just like attendance at the "campaign event" that President Trump plans to host this weekend, the Mainstream Media Accountability Survey is a rare opportunity for all Americans, regardless of their political inclinations, to provide direct and valuable feedback to the White House about how they are doing.

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