Trump Thanks Politico Publisher for Leaked Email Praying for a Trump Win in 2020, Then Claims ‘Good News is, WE WON, Big’

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Former President Donald Trump praised Mathias Döpfner after a report that a leaked email had revealed the German media magnate invited his top staffers to join him to pray for a Trump victory in 2020. Oh, and the ex-president tossed in a claim that he had won that election, because of course he did.

Döpfner is the CEO and 22% owner of Axel Springer SE, the global media company with holdings that include Politico, Politico Europe, Business Insider, and German publications like Die Welt, Bild, and the German edition of Rolling Stone. As first reported by the Washington Post, Döpfner sent an email to several of his “closest executives” a few weeks before the 2020 presidential election praising Trump and inviting them to join him for a prayer for his re-election.

According to the Post, Döpfner wrote that Trump had made the right decisions regarding five out of six policy areas, only missing the target regarding climate change. “Mehr hat keine amerikanische Regierung der letzten 50 Jaren geschafft,” he wrote. (“No other American administration has done more in the last 50 years.”)

“Wollen wir alle am 3. November morgens eine Stunde in uns gehen und beten das Donald Trump wider Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika wird?” he invited his colleagues. (“Do we all want to get together for an hour the morning of Nov. 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?”)

Döpfner originally responded to the Post’s request for comment with a “forceful denial” that he had written the email, calling it “intrinsically false” but then backtracking when he was shown a printout:

When shown a printout of the text, Döpfner allowed a glimmer of recognition. It’s possible, he said, that he may have sent the email “as an ironic, provocative statement in the circle of people that hate Donald Trump,” because that’s exactly the kind of ironic, provocative thing that Döpfner, a garrulous and enthusiastic texter, likes to do.

“That is me,” he said. “That could be.”

The possibility that Döpfner may have invited his executives to pray for Trump just as a troll did not dissuade the ex-president from sharing a New York Post link that summarized the Washington Post report on his Truth Social account, along with the caption: “Thank you to the very brilliant Mathias Döpfner. Good news is, WE WON, Big.”

Screenshot via Truth Social.

Trump, of course, did not win, in either a “BIG” or “SMALL” way. Now-President Joe Biden won 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232, and racked up more than 81 million votes, the highest number of votes ever cast for any candidate in an American presidential election.

(Hat tip: Ben Collins on Twitter.)

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