Donald Trump has never been one for facts, figures, science, or math, especially when they run counter to his agenda, or rudely reveal that he is not the most popular president in the history of the universe whom voters would give 25 terms to if they could. As we head into 2020, that’s a problem, given that recent polls, including those conducted by his own campaign, show many a state wants to send the ex-real estate developer back to the gilded hellhole from whence he came. Luckily Trump has a solution that you probably could’ve seen coming, even if you only watched the first episode of this horror anthology: lie, lie, and lie some more.

Two days after the New York Times reported that he had instructed aides to deny internal polling that showed him trailing Joe Biden in “many of the states he needs to win, even though he is also trailing in public polls from key states like Texas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania,” Trump told reporters that he’s actually kicking ass. “We have great internal polling,” he said during a meeting in the Oval Office with Polish President Andrzej Duda. “We are winning in every single state that we’ve polled.” He added that polls that say otherwise are “made up by the newspapers,” calling the Times report “fake news” and telling Duda, a right-wing nationalist, “Much of the media in this country, unfortunately, is corrupt.”

Trump’s explanation for why his re-election prospects are actually the exact opposite of what data shows followed an early-morning Twitter tirade in which he claimed the media is actually in possession of positive polling numbers that it’s choosing to censor. “The Fake News has never been more dishonest than it is today,” he ranted. “Thank goodness we can fight back on Social Media. Their new weapon of choice is Fake Polling, sometimes referred to as Suppression Polls (they suppress the numbers). Had it in 2016, but this is worse. The Fake (Corrupt) News Media said they had a leak into polling done by my campaign which, by the way and despite the phony and never ending Witch Hunt, are the best numbers WE have ever had. They reported Fake numbers that they made up & don’t even exist. WE WILL WIN AGAIN!”

In May, Politico reported that a 17-state poll conducted by the Trump campaign “concluded the president trails Joe Biden in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.” On Tuesday a nationwide Quinnipiac poll showed Trump losing the White House to Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Cory Booker, with Biden beating Trump by 13 points. “The head-to-head matchups give this heads-up to President Donald Trump’s team: former Vice President Joseph Biden and other Democratic contenders would beat the president if the election were held today,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. “It’s a long 17 months to Election Day, but Joe Biden is ahead by landslide proportions.”

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House votes to hold Wilbur Ross, Bill Barr in contempt over census probeOn the one hand, the commerce secretary probably didn’t appreciate this turn of events:

The House Oversight Committee voted on Wednesday to hold Attorney General William P. Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for failing to turn over documents about the administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The nearly party-line vote of 24-to-15 came hours after President Trump asserted executive privilege to shield the materials from Congress. Democratic lawmakers have accused the Trump administration of stonewalling their efforts to investigate Ross’s March 2018 decision to add the citizenship question, which the government says it needs to better enforce the Voting Rights Act.

Opponents of the citizenship question have argued that it will suppress responses to the survey among immigrant communities, resulting in an undercount in the areas where they live. The population count from the decennial census is used to allocate $800 billion a year in federal funding and determine congressional representation and redistricting. A key issue in the challenges to the citizenship question is how it came to be added. Ross originally told Congress that his decision to add it came solely in response to a December 2017 request from the Justice Department, but lawsuits later produced emails showing that Ross, who oversees the Census Bureau, had been pushing for the question for months before that.

On the other hand, Ross’s day also involved stumping for Ivanka Trump’s defunct clothing line and the Trump family’s for-profit hotel, so it all evens out!

Speaking of the Trump family business

Either foreign governments have a thing for patronizing businesses where the risk of gastrointestinal distress is high, or these people know they’re dealing with a man who can be easily bought:

Representatives of at least 22 foreign governments appear to have spent money at Trump Organization properties, an NBC News review has found, hinting at a significant foreign cash flow to the American president that critics say violates the U.S. Constitution. The extent and amount of foreign spending at Trump's hotels, golf clubs, and restaurants is not known, because the Trump Organization is a private company and declines to disclose that information. Trump promised to donate any profits from foreign governments, and the Trump Organization has sent $343,000 to the U.S. Treasury for 2017 and 2018. The company did not release underlying numbers to support that figure.… A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment by NBC News.

Bernie Sanders doesn’t appreciate Jamie Dimon’s thoughts on socialism

“I didn’t hear Jamie Dimon criticizing socialism when Wall Street begged for the largest federal bailout in American history—some $700 billion from the Treasury and even more from the Fed,” Sanders wrote on Twitter after catching wind of the JPMorgan CEO’s comments, made at a Business Roundtable event, that “socialism means that the government owns and controls companies,” and uses them “for political purposes, for jobs and votes.” Dimon has previously maintained that JPMorgan didn’t need a bailout to survive the crisis, and that it was forced on the bank by the government because opting out would have made things worse for weaker rivals who needed the cash.

Trump: only the loose teeth and thumbtacks in my head know when the trade war will end

“I have no deadline,” Trump told reporters at on Wednesday when asked when he planned to resume trade talks with China. “My deadline is what’s up here,” he added, pointing to his head.

Elsewhere!

The trade war is taking an enormous bite out of profits for Wall Street’s biggest names (CNBC)

Facebook Worries Emails Could Show Zuckerberg Knew of Questionable Privacy Practices (WSJ)

GOP leader concedes tax cuts may not pay for themselves as 2019 deficit grows (Washington Post)

Goldman Women in 14-Year Discrimination Fight Resist Arbitration (Bloomberg)

Former Stanford sailing coach gets one day in prison in college cheating scandal (NBC News)

Google Axes Lobbyists Amid Growing Government Scrutiny (WSJ)

The cost of buying a pint at a bar is dropping as millennials ditch alcohol (Business Insider)

Thanks to HBO, more tourists are flocking to the eerie Chernobyl nuclear disaster site (Washington Post)

Start-up offers to name your baby for $350 (UPI)

— Exclusive: Gabriel Sherman reveals Donald Trump and Marla Maples’s prenup

— Mitch McConnell’s wife gave him a special reelection present: $78 million in federal funding

— The horrifying truth laid bare by Trump’s screwball visit to the U.K.

— Inside the multi-million dollar, totally messed up renovation of the Plaza Hotel

— From the Archive: The murder of a hedge-fund manager that stunned New York society

— Why Chernobyl’s unique form of dread was so addicting

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