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On election night, internet pioneer Matt Drudge reportedly told Steve Bannon, who was then executive chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, that the corporate media’s exit polls showing Hillary Clinton beating Trump were wrong.
“Fuck the corporate media,” he reportedly told Bannon, according to Joshua Green’s new book, Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency“They’ve been wrong on everything. They’ll be wrong on this.”
Green notes that the first exit polls Drudge splashed on his website showed that voters “were deeply dissatisfied and longing for ‘change’” but also did not show Trump winning in any swing state.
“Well, the numbers tell two different stories,” Bannon told Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner when Kushner wondered what the polls meant. “If you believe one set, we’re killing it, it’s a change election, and everything lines up exactly like we thought. But, man, if you believe the other one, we’re getting crushed.”