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The Run-Up

MAGA Thinks the Game Is Rigged. Will They Play?

The Run-Up

The New York Times

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.42K Ratings

🗓️ 29 February 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For a lot of his most loyal supporters, Donald Trump isn’t just the former president or even the potential next president. He is, in their view, the true president — because many of them believe the 2020 election was stolen. So with Mr. Trump marching toward the Republican nomination and a likely rematch with President Biden in November, we went to this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference for a temperature check on election denial. Can the MAGA movement move on? Or is the only result they’ll trust a result where Mr. Trump wins?

Transcript

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0:00.0

Okay, so we're entering CPAC Central, that's what it's called?

0:04.8

CPAC Central.

0:06.8

D da da da da.

0:09.2

Every year at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference.

0:13.6

There seems to be an unspoken competition of who can stand out the most.

0:19.4

People wear wild outfits.

0:21.6

This year I saw a Trump ball gown, $400 Maga sneakers, a man carrying his pet

0:27.5

cat around his shoulders. But the thing that I'll remember most from CPAC this year was a little booth on the ground floor of the conference center.

0:39.0

So it's a virtualized pinball game that, oh my goodness, has, you know, different things

0:48.7

signifying January 6th.

0:50.1

So fake news, stop to steal, peaceful protest, Ashley Babbitt's murder, political prisoners,

0:57.0

Left Ramp Awards Double Freedom.

0:59.8

A custom pinball game built to memorialize the January 6th insurrection.

1:05.0

I mean I actually use the word insurrection a little bit tongue in cheek because I don't think

1:09.1

it was an insurrection.

1:10.5

Build the creator Jonathan Linos takes issue with that word.

1:15.0

99% of the people that went there went there to a Trump rally to support the president

1:20.0

and so I built the pinball machine that tries to bring the truth of what actually happened

1:26.9

as opposed to the, what I consider a manufactured narrative of what happened in January 6.

1:34.2

To him, the game is a reminder of the great lie of the 2020 election.

1:40.4

I don't like losing, but I hate to be be cheated and that's what I was reacting to is a visceral reaction

1:47.2

And to me it's a reminder that for a lot of the CPAC crowd

...

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