'Tough sell': CNN’s Tapper shreds Trump claim of 'diabolical conspiracy'

President Donald Trump is attempting a "tough sell" on the American people by belatedly claiming the 2026 midterm elections were stolen from him. In those contests, Democrats shocked the political world by winning back the Senate and House of Representatives by landslide margins, with most polls indicating that the key issues were high prices and government corruption.

"Today, it appears Trump has entered the denial stage of grief," CNN's Jake Tapper said on Monday. "On Truth Social this morning, the president wrote, quote, 'Does anybody really believe that this election was honest? How could the polls be so wrong? Some early voting dumps were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote. It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter,' unquote."

Tapper added, "The president is, of course, offering zero evidence of fraud. Zero. Per usual. To the president’s question of whether anybody believes the election was real and honest: well, yeah. Yeah, they do. Election officials, secretaries of state, governors, Democrats, Republicans — all have said the elections ran smoothly."

He continued, "And how exactly would this rigging scheme work in, let’s say, Texas? The diabolical conspiracy to hand the state over to Democrats, led by the scheming heads of that state, Republican Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, both of whom were running for office and both of whom lost? Were they in on it?"

Pointing out that CNN had reported on Trump's baseless fraud accusations for months, Tapper concluded that "before Trump reached the denial phase, he spent time in other stages of grief. In a 60 Minutes interview taped Friday that aired last night, the president was in what seemed like the bargaining stage, surprising his own base by saying that he would be open to bargaining with Democrats on the matter of immigration."

Speaking to AlterNet last week, polling and politics expert Kyle Kondik — the managing editor at Sabato's Crystal Ball — explained why Trump's Republicans lost so decisively in 2026.

"This was such a thumping that even he couldn't deny it with a straight face," Kondik told AlterNet when asked why Trump had, at that time at least, not contested the results.

"This is one of the biggest waves in American history," Kondik continued, adding that "the Watergate wave of 1974 might be the only comparable election in modern history. This was kind of like 2006, but clearly bigger."