# Post ts_111063577452904244 - Post ID: `ts_111063577452904244` - Platform: Truth Social - Posted: 2023-09-14T12:48:20.875Z (UTC) - Deleted: no - Repost: no - Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111063577452904244 - Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111063577452904244/analysis - Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/ts_111063577452904244.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording) ## Post text > Best Polls Ever, but rarely shown on television. Leading by 50 and 60 points. Just like they don’t like showing our big Rally CROWDS, they don’t like showing our GREAT POLL NUMBERS. WE HAVE RIGGED ELECTIONS, AND RIGGED TELEVISION! ## Engagement - Likes: 13,913 - Reposts: 3,627 - Replies: 565 - Views: unknown - Metrics collected: 2026-02-01T01:19:51.398Z (UTC) # Analysis _Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-20T08:35:39.118Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._ ## Summary This post demonstrates a clinically characteristic Trump communication pattern: rapid oscillation between grandiose self-promotion and persecutory victimhood within a single short text. Opening with "Best Polls Ever" and escalating to "WE HAVE RIGGED ELECTIONS, AND RIGGED TELEVISION" in four sentences, the post reveals acute narcissistic dysregulation triggered by perceived media invisibility — likely provoked by Fox News coverage of DeSantis seen that morning (contextually confirmed by the immediately preceding post). The deployment of Level 1 defenses (distortion, delusional projection) to explain why external reality fails to confirm the grandiose self-narrative is the most clinically notable feature. The extension of the rigged-system schema from elections to television is a notable scope escalation; prior formulations typically targeted voting infrastructure. All factual claims in the post are false or mostly false: actual polling margins were ~35-42 points, not 50-60; rally coverage was substantial; and the election-rigging claim has been rejected in 60+ legal proceedings. Authorship is high-confidence authentic Trump — reactive morning television viewing, ALL CAPS emotional escalation, and stream-of-consciousness structure are unmistakable. Danger level is elevated: this post continues the election-denial narrative maintenance that the January 6 Commission documented as a precursor mobilization condition, now extending institutional delegitimization to broadcast media. # Analysis: Truth Social Post — 2023-09-14T12:48:20Z ## Authorship Attribution **Local Time:** UTC 12:48 converts to 8:48 AM EDT (Trump was likely in New York or Bedminster, NJ in mid-September 2023 — Bedminster is his typical fall residence before the Mar-a-Lago winter season). Morning business hours slightly favor aide authorship by timing alone, but the stylistic fingerprint overwhelms that signal. **Verdict: High-confidence authentic Trump.** Evidence: ALL CAPS emotional escalation, stream-of-consciousness structure, the conspiratorial rhetorical leap from poll suppression to "RIGGED ELECTIONS, AND RIGGED TELEVISION" in a single sentence, exclamation points throughout, the ungrammatical hedging ("50 and 60 points" rather than a specific figure), and the possessive "our" crowd/poll construction. No aide would compose the jarring final sentence in caps. This reads as reactive morning viewing — Trump watching cable television, seeing DeSantis coverage, and firing off a post. --- ## Psychological State and Triggers The trigger is narcissistic injury delivered via omission: Trump perceives media as deliberately suppressing coverage of his poll leads and rally crowds. Perceived invisibility functions as an attack on the grandiose self, requiring immediate compensatory broadcasting. The post oscillates rapidly between the grandiose pole ("Best Polls Ever," "50 and 60 points") and the vulnerable-persecutory pole ("rigged elections," "rigged television"), a pattern consistent with unstable narcissistic regulation. The specific trigger can be localized: the DeSantis post immediately preceding this one complains about Fox News giving DeSantis airtime ("Fox has him all over the place, even on Hannity last night"). The poll/crowd suppression narrative is the psychological sequel — Trump receives what he interprets as a comparative status insult (DeSantis on Hannity) and responds by asserting dominance via poll numbers, then attributing the failure of those numbers to achieve wider visibility to systemic conspiracy. **Narcissistic state: Mixed grandiose-vulnerable**, with rapid intra-post escalation from grandiosity to persecutory victimhood. The final sentence signals the injured, rageful register beneath the opening bravado. --- ## Defense Mechanisms **Distortion (Level 1 / Pathological):** "50 and 60 points" grossly overstates actual margins. Real-world polling data is reshaped to fit the grandiose self-image. This is not mere spin — the claim reflects internal conviction. **Delusional projection (Level 1 / Pathological):** "RIGGED ELECTIONS, AND RIGGED TELEVISION" — the failure of external reality (media coverage, poll display) to confirm the grandiose self-narrative is resolved by attributing systematic malice to external institutions. This is the most clinically notable feature of the post. **Splitting (Level 2 / Immature):** Media either displays Trump's greatness honestly or it is rigged. No intermediate possibility exists. Poll numbers are either "best ever" or suppressed. Classic black-and-white object relations. **Rationalization (Level 3 / Neurotic):** The logical structure ("Just like they don't show rally crowds, they don't show poll numbers") provides pseudo-causal coherence to what is essentially a persecution narrative. --- ## Rhetorical Techniques **Parallel structure as evidence:** The analogy between crowd suppression and poll suppression is presented as if it constitutes proof. The structural symmetry mimics logical argument while containing none. **Superlative anchoring:** "Best Polls Ever" establishes a ceiling claim that cannot be falsified and forces interlocutors to argue against an undefined absolute. **Collective pronoun deployment:** "our" (crowds, poll numbers), "WE" — converts a personal grievance into a movement-level conspiracy, creating audience solidarity around shared victimhood. **Reality inversion via capitalization:** The ALL-CAPS finale functions rhetorically as a truth-intensity signal — the orthographic emphasis substitutes for evidentiary support. **Firehose principle:** The volume of superlatives and conspiratorial assertions (best polls → suppressed coverage → rigged elections → rigged television) overwhelms the capacity for individual claim scrutiny. --- ## Narrative Identity **Protagonist role:** The suppressed winner. Trump is simultaneously the most popular figure in American politics AND the most systematically marginalized — a narcissistically unstable but rhetorically powerful position that fuses grievance and status. **Contamination sequence:** "We have the best polls → but they rig the system to hide it." The victory is real; the corruption is what prevents recognition. **Contrasting other:** Unnamed media institutions, television networks. In context with the preceding DeSantis post, Fox News is implicitly included in the "rigged television" accusation — a notable turn given Fox's historical role as his primary media ally. **Identity claim:** America First populist whose genuine popularity is hidden by corrupt institutions. The claim binds Trump's personal status anxiety to a broader political narrative of systemic suppression. --- ## Gaslighting and Reality Distortion - **"WE HAVE RIGGED ELECTIONS"** — maintenance of the Big Lie in declarative, unhedged form. Not "I believe" or "evidence suggests" — presented as established fact. This functions as an ongoing epistemic loyalty test for followers. - **"RIGGED TELEVISION"** — novel extension of the rigged-system schema to broadcast media, requiring audiences to reject the evidentiary framework of televised poll reporting. - **Rapid revisionism:** The preceding DeSantis post complained specifically about Fox News giving DeSantis coverage. This post then accuses "television" of rigging. The two posts in combination gaslight the television audience about the nature of coverage while simultaneously demonstrating that Trump watches and reacts to that coverage closely. **DARVO pattern:** Deny (polls aren't shown fairly) → Attack (rigged systems) → Reverse Victim and Offender (Trump becomes the victim of systemic media conspiracy while being the most covered political figure in American media). --- ## Cognitive Status Relative to established baseline, no significant deviation detected. The post exhibits Trump's characteristic short syntactic units, heavy punctuation, and loose associative flow. The hedging between specific numbers ("50 and 60 points") is consistent with prior baseline behavior — Trump frequently produces approximate figure ranges when precise data is unavailable or unflattering. No word-finding difficulties, phonemic/semantic paraphasias, or temporal confusions observed. Perseveration on the crowd/poll-suppression schema is consistent with prior behavior rather than indicating novel cognitive change. Complexity score is consistent with 2023 baseline. --- ## Fact Verification | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |-------|---------|----------| | "Leading by 50 and 60 points in polls" | **Mostly False** | September 2023 national GOP primary polls showed Trump at approximately 50-55% support with DeSantis at 13-18%, yielding leads of approximately 30-42 points over the nearest competitor. No consistent polling showed 50-60 point leads. The claim appears to conflate Trump's raw polling percentage with his margin of lead — a characteristic rhetorical move. | | "They don't like showing our big Rally CROWDS" | **Mostly False** | Trump rallies received substantial television coverage throughout 2023, including on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. The claim of systematic crowd-coverage suppression is not supported by the media record. | | "WE HAVE RIGGED ELECTIONS" | **False** | No credible evidence supports systemic rigging of U.S. elections. Over 60 post-2020 legal challenges were dismissed or decided against Trump, with courts including Trump-appointed judges finding no evidence of fraud sufficient to alter results. The claim has been repeatedly rejected by election officials of both parties, the Department of Justice under Trump, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. | | "RIGGED TELEVISION" | **Unverifiable** | Subjective conspiracy claim about media coverage decisions. While editorial choices about coverage are real and subject to legitimate critique, the claim of coordinated rigging is unverifiable and unsupported by evidence. | Overall Veracity: 23% ## Danger Assessment The post maintains and reinforces the election-denial narrative with declarative intensity ("WE HAVE RIGGED ELECTIONS"). This is not incitement language per se, but it contributes to the ongoing delegitimization of democratic institutions that contextually enables political violence. The extension of the rigged-system schema to "RIGGED TELEVISION" broadens the target set from elections to media infrastructure. **Danger level: Elevated.** Not acute stochastic terrorism, but sustained epistemic groundwork for institutional delegitimization. The January 6 Commission documented how the "rigged election" narrative functioned as a precursor condition for mobilization. This post continues that narrative maintenance. --- ## Summary This post represents a clinically characteristic Trump communication combining grandiose self-promotion with persecutory victimhood in rapid sequence — a pattern consistent with the oscillating narcissistic states documented across his posting history. The post opens with a status claim ("Best Polls Ever") and within two sentences inverts to systemic persecution ("WE HAVE RIGGED ELECTIONS, AND RIGGED TELEVISION"), suggesting acute narcissistic dysregulation triggered by perceived media invisibility, likely provoked by Fox News coverage of DeSantis seen that morning. The deployment of Level 1 defenses (distortion, delusional projection) to explain why external reality fails to confirm the grandiose self-narrative — specifically, the leap from "my polls aren't shown enough" to "elections and television are rigged" — represents a significant reality-distortion load. The extension of the rigged-system schema to broadcast television is a novel escalation warranting longitudinal monitoring; prior formulations typically targeted voting infrastructure, not media coverage per se. Authorship is high-confidence authentic Trump: reactive, emotionally driven, temporally linked to morning cable news viewing, and stylistically unmistakable. The false factual claims (50-60 point leads, rigged elections) are presented as declarative facts without hedging, consistent with the pathological distortion defense and the ongoing Big Lie maintenance function these posts serve. ## Authorship Analysis **Self-Written** (score: 92%) ### Indicators - ALL CAPS emotional escalation in final sentence - Stream-of-consciousness structure with loose associative logic - Ungrammatical number hedging ('50 and 60 points') rather than precise figure - Possessive 'our' crowd/poll construction consistent with authentic voice - Reactive morning timing consistent with cable news viewing (8:48 AM EDT) ## Psychological Profile ### State **Mixed State** **Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Comparison (Perceived media invisibility and comparative status insult from Fox News covering DeSantis) **Rage:** Intensity 72% targeting Television media / election institutions - Proportionality: 15% Sentiment: -0.45 **Mildly Hypomanic** - Rapid escalation within short text from self-congratulation to conspiratorial indictment - ALL CAPS intensity in closing sentence suggests elevated arousal state - Grandiose superlatives ('Best Polls Ever') with compressed reality-testing - Reactive morning posting pattern consistent with low threshold for emotional activation ### Clinical **Malignant Narcissism:** - Narcissistic: 87% - Antisocial: 62% - Paranoid: 82% - Sadism: 22% **Defense Mechanisms:** - distortion (pathological) - delusional projection (pathological) - splitting (immature) - rationalization (neurotic) **Cognitive Complexity:** - Complexity: 28% **Parasocial Techniques:** - Collective pronoun fusion ('our' crowds, 'our' poll numbers, 'WE HAVE') converts personal grievance into movement-level conspiracy - Shared victimhood framing invites audience to see themselves as co-suppressed - Declarative certainty ('WE HAVE RIGGED ELECTIONS') positions audience to either accept or be excluded ## Danger Assessment **ELEVATED** ### Indicators - Maintenance of declarative election-denial narrative ('WE HAVE RIGGED ELECTIONS') in unhedged form — documented precursor condition for political mobilization - Extension of rigged-system schema to broadcast media broadens the target set for institutional delegitimization - Epistemic closure enforcement: presenting false claims as facts functions as loyalty test requiring followers to reject mainstream information infrastructure ### Gaslighting - 'WE HAVE RIGGED ELECTIONS' — declarative maintenance of Big Lie as established fact, denying documented election results and 60+ court findings - Extension to 'RIGGED TELEVISION' requires audiences to reject televised poll reporting as a legitimate evidentiary framework - DARVO pattern: Deny (polls aren't shown fairly) → Attack (rigged systems) → Reverse Victim and Offender (Trump becomes victim of systemic conspiracy while being most-covered political figure in American media) - Preceding DeSantis post complained specifically about Fox News coverage; this post then broadly accuses 'television' of rigging — rapid scope expansion erasing the specific grievance ## Fact Checks (4) _The model's verdicts from 2026-03-20._ > Leading by 50 and 60 points in polls **MOSTLY FALSE** September 2023 national GOP primary polls showed Trump at approximately 50-55% support with DeSantis at 13-18%, yielding leads of approximately 30-42 points over the nearest competitor. No consistent polling showed 50-60 point leads. The claim appears to conflate Trump's raw polling percentage with his margin of lead — a characteristic rhetorical move. Sources: General knowledge of 2023 GOP primary polling landscape > They don't like showing our big Rally CROWDS **MOSTLY FALSE** Trump rallies received substantial television coverage throughout 2023, including on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. The claim of systematic crowd-coverage suppression is not supported by the media record. Sources: General knowledge of 2023 media coverage patterns > WE HAVE RIGGED ELECTIONS **FALSE** No credible evidence supports systemic rigging of U.S. elections. Over 60 post-2020 legal challenges were dismissed or decided against Trump, with courts including Trump-appointed judges finding no evidence of fraud sufficient to alter results. The claim has been repeatedly rejected by election officials of both parties, the Department of Justice under Trump, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Sources: Documented post-2020 election litigation record; CISA 'most secure election' statement; General knowledge of legal proceedings > RIGGED TELEVISION **UNVERIFIABLE** Subjective conspiracy claim about media coverage decisions. While editorial choices about coverage are real and subject to legitimate critique, the claim of coordinated rigging is unverifiable and unsupported by evidence. Overall Veracity: 23% ## Tags - election-denial (95%) - media-conspiracy (88%) - narcissistic-injury-response (85%) - grandiose-victimhood-oscillation (82%) - big-lie-maintenance (90%) - authentic-trump (92%) - supply-seeking (65%) - reality-distortion (80%) ## That day _From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._ **Every Win Becomes a Wound: Hunter Indictment Weaponized Into Self-Victimhood as Institutional Delegitimization Saturates the Day** Trump spent September 14 cycling between attacking DeSantis after watching morning cable news, amplifying flattering poll coverage, and reframing the Hunter Biden gun indictment as proof that Democrats have weaponized the justice system against him. The mood was combative throughout, with a brief flash of anger about "rigged elections" and "rigged television" in the morning and a more sustained afternoon escalation demanding Democrats stop "interfering" with the 2024 election. A large block of link-only posts around midmorning appeared to be staff-managed content rather than personal output. The most striking pattern of the day was Trump's inability to treat a political win — his rival's son getting indicted — as anything other than further evidence of his own persecution. Full digest for 2023-09-14: https://trump.fm/date/2023-09-14/analysis ## Citation - APA: Trump, D. J. (2023, September 14). Best Polls Ever, but rarely shown on television.... [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_111063577452904244 - MLA: Trump, Donald J. "Best Polls Ever, but rarely shown on television. Leading by..." Truth Social, 14 Sep. 2023. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_111063577452904244. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026. - Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "Best Polls Ever, but rarely shown on television. Leading by...," Truth Social, September 14, 2023, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_111063577452904244. ## For agents - Site overview: https://trump.fm/llms.txt - API specification: https://trump.fm/openapi.json - MCP server: https://trump.fm/mcp (search and fetch tools, no auth) - This post as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/posts/ts_111063577452904244 - Analysis as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/analysis/ts_111063577452904244 - All citation formats: https://trump.fm/api/cite/ts_111063577452904244 - Same day: https://trump.fm/date/2023-09-14 - The record alone, without the analysis: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111063577452904244.md?analysis=false _Markdown view of a trump.fm page. Post, analysis, date, feed, contradictions, search and about pages answer in markdown at their URL with `.md` appended (`/index.md` for the home page), or when sent `Accept: text/markdown`._