Trump says pollsters have him at 42%: “You mean times two and add 20”

Donald Trump says pollsters make up his numbers, and in Rock Hill, South Carolina, he did both voices. Doing the pollster, he had himself at 42%. Then, as himself: “You mean times two and add 20.” By our math, that is 104%, a number unknown to polling, to elections and to percentages.

“Boy, they are bad,” he went on. “They’re sick people. Fake polls.”

A few minutes later he laid out how the industry works, according to him. There are no pollsters: “It’s a guy sitting at his desk with a big bank account.” That guy, in Trump’s telling, simply decides to “make him 42.” Then: “Breaking news, Donald Trump is polling at 42.” Then he sends someone a bill “for a million bucks.”

He had exceptions (“I think McLaughlin’s a good poll. I think Fabrizio’s a good poll”) and a remedy. He called on South Carolina’s attorney general: “Alan Wilson, please do an investigation.” The suspect is a man at a desk. The crime is the number 42.