JUST IN: Trump Announces Legal Move Against Embattled Pollster Ann Selzer: ‘Election Interference’

President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Monday that he intends to file a lawsuit against Ann Selzer, a prominent Iowa pollster, and the Des Moines Register, accusing them of manipulating poll results to interfere with the 2024 election. Trump also revealed plans to sue CBS’s 60 Minutes, alleging the program edited a “horrible” answer from Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump singled out Selzer, whose widely regarded Iowa polls were consistently seen as an accurate barometer of the state’s political sentiment.

“I’m going to be bringing one against the people in Iowa, their newspaper, which had a very, very good pollster who got me right all the time,” Trump said. “And then just before the election, she said I was going to lose by three or four points. And it became the biggest story all over the world because I was going to win Iowa by 20 points.”

Trump suggested that Selzer, working on behalf of the Des Moines Register, manipulated polling data in the lead-up to the election to narrow his lead. “She brought it down very smartly to four a couple of weeks before, and everyone said, ‘Wow, that’s amazing, he’s only up by four points.'”

Trump continued, “It was their parent, and, in my opinion, it was fraud, and it was election interference. You know, she’s gotten me right, always. She’s a very good pollster. She knows what she was doing.” Ann Selzer, founder of Selzer & Company, had been a well-respected figure in political polling for decades.

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Her surveys were repeatedly lauded for their accuracy, particularly in Iowa. However, Trump went on to win the state handily by 13 points, with the race called within an hour of polls closing—a 16-point polling miss. Shortly after the election, Selzer announced her retirement. The poll initially sparked excitement among Democrats and left-leaning pundits, who cited Selzer’s strong reputation as a reason to trust the results. However, Selzer later admitted the poll was a “big miss” and speculated it may have motivated Republicans to turn out in greater numbers. Selzer, who began working with the Register in 1987, maintained her decision to retire had been made a year prior.

Trump also took aim at CBS’s 60 Minutes, accusing the program of editing answers given by Vice President Kamala Harris to remove what he described as a “horrible answer.”

“We’re filing one on 60 Minutes. You know about that where they took Kamala’s answer—which was a crazy answer, horrible answer—and they took the whole answer out,” Trump said.

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Remember Kamala’s word salad answer about Israel on 60 Minutes? It’s gone.

This is what many Americans will now see. pic.twitter.com/H4w7btDv6x

— MAZE (@mazemoore) October 8, 2024

In the October 60 Minutes interview, Harris faced scrutiny over her economic proposals, immigration policies, and shifting political positions. The interview has sparked discussions about media editing practices and transparency. Reports indicate that CBS aired two different answers to the same question from Harris, leading to calls for the release of the full interview transcript. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr urged CBS to release the transcript to address concerns of potential “news distortion.”

(VOTE: Should ’60 Minutes’ Be Investigated For Deceptively Editing Kamala Interview?)