--- title: The Big Lie Is False. The Republicans Can’t Shake It description: If you want a quick study on the state of Republican politics, this is a pretty good week to tune in. canonical: https://time.com/6112488/trump-2020-election-republicans/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-11-01T18:44:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T09:16:18.871Z article:section: Politics og:title: The Big Lie Is False. The Republicans Can’t Shake It og:description: If you want a quick study on the state of Republican politics, this is a pretty good week to tune in. og:url: https://time.com/6112488/trump-2020-election-republicans/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3b4d8dc85d74b3ba/698a1e59d075330a11e6c1c2/donald-trump-gop.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: Former President Donald Trump Holds A Rally In Alabama og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Big Lie Is False. The Republicans Can’t Shake It twitter:description: If you want a quick study on the state of Republican politics, this is a pretty good week to tune in. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3b4d8dc85d74b3ba/698a1e59d075330a11e6c1c2/donald-trump-gop.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Big Lie Has Been Proven False. Republicans Can’t Shake It > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. Brief goes beyond the Washington headlines to explain the politics, personalities and power dynamics shaping what happens next. 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It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=ba5e34aa-4ec7-4533-8295-d937e3c4da8d&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Stories Behind Donald Trump's TIME Covers [Watch (HLS stream): The Stories Behind Donald Trump's TIME Covers](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/W8uZ13Pz.m3u8) (5:07)  _Published 2021-01-21. TIME's D.W. Pine looks back at the various covers featuring Donald Trump, from his first appearance in 1989 to the end of his presidency._  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Nov 1, 2021 6:44 PM UTC  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Nov 1, 2021 6:44 PM UTC _This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/newsletter%5Fopt-in?qs=3a19a0aa35903a2d9f214b74f69a37910b58de73cf3f2b89adc123fac024f0478c72f91010ae9d01f08f46c616068cab3e74726837cd2cce70dac3796e46c2b4) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday._ If you want a quick study on the state of Republican politics, this is a pretty good week to tune in. Rep. Adam Kinzinger [ended](https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/10/29/exp-tsr-todd-gop-trump-critic-kinzinger-quits-congress.cnn) his own career in the House last week, [saying](https://www.msnbc.com/ayman-peacock/watch/what-adam-kinzinger-s-retirement-means-for-the-gop-124952133936) he preferred to fight the Trumpist wing of his GOP from the outside. Glenn Youngkin is [heading](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/virginia-biden-mcauliffe-youngkin/2021/10/31/aa8c6d62-384b-11ec-8be3-e14aaacfa8ac%5Fstory.html) into Election Day [tomorrow](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/11/01/virginia-enduring-political-myth-517716) in strong contention to become the 74th Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, a Trumpian heir to Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. And a politically popular package of proposals like paid family leave and free pre-K care are [flailing](https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/11-1-2021/another-massive-week/) on Capitol Hill without a whiff of Republican support because, if they succeed, they could give President Joe Biden some tailwinds. This is the state of the Republican Party at the moment: beholden to All Things Trump and fearful of seeming to give him or his allies even a moderate setback. Since Election Day of last year, the GOP has been in sustained panic. Trump [lost](https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54788636) handily at the polls in an [election](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/11/why-biden-won-presidency/616980/) that saw him compete for bombast but not technocratic accomplishments. Trump banked on the false belief that loud superseded competent and came up short. In defeat, he decided to [claim](https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/16/politics/trump-big-lie-gop-election/index.html) the election was stolen. Trump tried—with [zero](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-election/u-s-supreme-court-dumps-last-of-trumps-election-appeals-idUSKBN2B01LE) success or credibility—to argue the whole affair was rigged and should be set aside. Having exhausted even his most ardent allies, he then urged a mob on [Jan. 6](https://time.com/5927664/capital-siege-trump-supporters/) to descend on the U.S. Capitol to force Congress to discard the results. Despite some harrowing hours, that attempt failed too, Congress rejected Trump’s antics and Biden was confirmed the winner. Well, fast forward some 10 months, and that terrifying day wasn’t merely a one-off. The GOP remains boxed-in by Trump’s false assertion, which deservedly is known in D.C. as The Big Lie. More than two-thirds of Republicans believe it. For those who watch Fox News, that number is 82%. For consumers of far-right news—think Newsmax and OAN—that number reaches near universal belief, at 97%. These numbers are courtesy of a new [study](https://www.prri.org/research/competing-visions-of-america-an-evolving-identity-or-a-culture-under-attack/), out today, from the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution. The findings follow a similar May [survey](https://www.prri.org/spotlight/the-big-lie-most-republicans-believe-the-2020-election-was-stolen/) from the same pollsters and suggest a hardening of the belief that Trump is the rightful winner of the 2020 vote. In other words, the grievance is growing and the misinformation metastasizing. If the ramifications of these sentiments were limited to what happened with Trump in 2020, this mightn’t be so worrisome. But it pervades the political environment. It’s why Kinzinger, one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riots and one of two Republicans participating in the House probe of it, has decided to exit stage right. (Illinois redistricting [maps](https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/29/illinois-democrats-congressional-map-517544) didn’t help, either, to be fair.) Youngkin’s embrace of the MAGA agenda in Virginia makes more sense given these numbers, despite its threat to alienate the independents that comprise roughly a [quarter](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2017-election/va/) of the Virginia electorate. And Congressional Republicans’ refusal to consider the soft-infrastructure elements of Biden’s Build Back Better makes sense in this light as well. The numbers also offer a bleak picture of how Republicans view this country. The survey suggests the GOP is hostile to change. More than half of the Republicans say they feel like a stranger in America and 80% of them say the country is at risk of losing its culture. That anxiety and paranoia can be toxic features in a political space, but animating nonetheless. The survey also includes a rich piece of irony. When asked to define what makes someone “truly American,” a full 96% of Republicans say “respecting political institutions and laws” are critical—just as long as those institutions and laws defer to Trump and his Big Lie. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter._](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/politics?source=dc%5Farticle) ## Transcript I happened been on their cover like 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all time record in the history of Time magazine. Donald Trump has always had a fascination with time. He first landed on the cover on January 16th, 1989, 28 years before his inauguration, since before his election. Trump has regularly campaigned to be named Time's Person of the Year using rallies and his Twitter feed to comment on Time's choices. They should have picked me for the Person of the Year, but they didn't know. They said. And perhaps most notably, fake time travelers were designed to hang in his golf course clubhouses. Time has a long history of featuring presidents on the cover, and Trump has been no exception. Eight of the top ten people to appear most often on Time's cover are U.S. presidents. Trump finished his term with 35 covers, the fourth most of any president behind Richard Nixon's 55 covers. Ronald Reagan with 46 and Bill Clinton with 40. Rounding out the top ten are George W Bush with 32. Barack Obama 31. Jimmy Carter 27. Jesus 22. And Hillary Clinton and George H.W. Bush tied at 21. We first introduced candidate Trump to Time's readers in August of 2015, when photographer Martin Schaller and Time editor at large Paul Moakley brought a live bald eagle to the Trump Tower in New York City for a portrait. This symbol of democracy was particularly animated during the photo and video session, even angrily nipping at the president's hand during the 2016 campaign. We produced seven covers featuring Trump and created an original visual language for this president with the artwork of artist Adele Rodriguez. Rodriguez, who worked as Time's international art director in the 1990s as a strong, simple, graphic style that immediately grabbed worldwide recognition with the meltdown cover, a reflection of his slumping campaign following the Republican National Convention. Two months later, in response to the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, Rodriguez followed with an updated image with the headline Total Meltdown. Of course, TIME reports many different topics, and the visual approaches on the cover reinforces that variety. We have presented President Trump as a frenetic Twitter user, crumbling at the Washington Monument, a punching bag, a graphic wrecking ball, an angry character with his hair on fire, a cross between himself and Vladimir Putin, a king looking into a cover, a slingshot holding fighter, dueling with Nancy Pelosi, a happy president, whistling under an umbrella in the rain, and a man who has painted himself into a corner. We've also photographed Trump for multiple covers, including a White House tour for our May 22nd, 2017 cover and an Oval Office conversation in the summer of 2019 on Trump's plan to keep the White House. My favorite time cover of Trump is nothing to See Here from February 27, 2017. I believe the strongest time covers leave space for a variety of perspectives for this cover. If you're an opponent of President Trump, you look at the cover and you see all the chaos that this man has created. And if you're a supporter of the president, you look at it and say, even among all the chaos in Washington, look how resolute he is sitting behind that desk. That is a great place for a time cover to be. That image was created by longtime Time collaborator Tim O'Brien, who has painted more covers in the past 30 years than any other artist. It was the first of what would become a series of four paintings from O'Brien depicting Trump in a growing storm within the Oval Office. Our Trump covers have certainly not been without debate. An image we created of Trump staring down at a young immigrant girl for our Welcome to America cover sparked controversy. During the campaign, Trump frequently used the cover, proclaiming how Trump won as a selling point on the campaign trail. On numerous occasions, the president also tweeted out a fake time cover animation of how Trumpism outlasts Trump. A cover from October 22nd, 2018. But for most of the past year, the president's image on the cover took a backseat to front line workers. Racial injustice, protests and the rising COVID numbers. And even though the image of Trump wasn't physically shown on two recent covers, his influence was still present. While Trump's presidency has come to a close, it's certainly possible that we haven't seen the last of him. On the cover of Time. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6112488/trump-2020-election-republicans/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6112488/trump-2020-election-republicans/"},"headline":"The Big Lie Has Been Proven False. 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