By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-16 22:46:51 | Updated at 2024-12-17 01:53:50
3 hours ago
President-elect Donald Trump threatened to sue the Des Moines Register over pollster Ann Selzer's inaccurate prediction that Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, was going to win the state of Iowa.
Trump held his first press conference since his November 5 election win at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, holding court with reporters for more than an hour.
He recently was successful with a defamation suit against ABC News over anchor George Stephanopoulos saying Trump had been found 'liable for rape,' instead of 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 l have an obligation to,' Trump began.
Trump said the lawsuit would be filed Monday or Tuesday.
'I'm going to be bringing one against the people in Iowa, their newspaper, which had a very, very good pollster, who got it right all the time and then just before the election, she said I was going to lose by three of four points,' the incoming president continued.
'And it became the biggest story of all time, all over the world,' an annoyed Trump said.
President-elect Donald Trump said Monday at Mar-a-Lago that he's going to sue the Des Moines Register over pollster Ann Selzer's survey that showed him losing to Vice President Kamala Harris in the Hawkeye State, which was released Saturday before the election
Selzer's final Des Moines Register poll showed Trump three points behind Harris and was released the Saturday before Election Day.
It sent a tidal wave through the political universe as most polling - including DailyMail.com's - showed Trump ahead or even with Harris in the swing states.
But Iowa hasn't been considered a swing state since Trump came onto the political scene, with the Hawkeye State going for the Republican this time by a whopping 13.3 points.
Trump said at the press 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.
Prior to his general election win, Trump proved his strength in the state by easily beating rivals Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley and others in the Iowa caucuses in January.
Lark-Marie Anton, a spokesperson for the Des Moines Register, told DailyMail.com in a statement that a lawsuit against the paper would be 'without merit.'
'We have acknowledged that the Selzer/Des Moines Register pre-election poll did not reflect the ultimate margin of President Trump’s Election Day victory in Iowa by releasing the poll’s full demographics, crosstabs, weighted and unweighted data, as well as a technical explanation from pollster Ann Selzer,' she said. 'We stand by our reporting on the matter and believe a lawsuit would be without merit.'
Ann Selzer, who conducted polling for the Des Moines Register, came out with a survey the Saturday before the election showing Trump losing the Hawkeye State to Harris. Trump ended up winning 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 he's turned to the legal system to litigate his claims as of late.
Another lawsuit that's brewing is against CBS News and 60 Minutes for what he claimed was selective editing of the program's sit-down with Harris.
'Where they took Kamala's answer, which was a crazy answer, horrible answer ... and replaced it with something that she said later on in the interview,' Trump described Monday.
Trump refused the traditional sit-down with the stories CBS program.
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 audio book of the 2020 best-seller Rage.
Trump also wants The Washington Times and The New York Times to have their Pulitzer Prizes revoked over stories they did on the FBI's Russia investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign.
On Monday Trump continued to call the Russia investigation a 'hoax.'
