Miller involuntarily rose from his seat. “What the fuck?” he said out loud, looking around and seeing the still-merry and untroubled faces in the Map Room; optimism had become exhilaration. Here, in the Map Room, on the verge of Trump’s reelection, was the inner circle of Trumpworld at its happiest. Jeanine Pirro was not the only wobbly one.

“That’s what they’re doing. That’s what they’re going with,” said Hemmer, helpless.

“Who?”

“The election desk.”

“When?”

“It’s going up now.”

Fifteen minutes before, just as the president was retaking the lead in North Carolina, Justin Clark, the election lawyer and deputy campaign manager, in a buoyant mood, had headed over to check in on the roomful of lawyers at the EEOB. Clark and Matt Morgan, also shuttling between the Map Room and the lawyers in the EEOB, both noted that it was quite a calm Election Night—no reports of widespread irregularities. It was a good night. Everything smooth. Clark got back to the Map Room at almost exactly 11:20, when Fox’s Arizona call was made—flabbergasted.

All certainty and belief seemed to crumble in a second.

It was a campaign more of signs and superstitions than numbers.

Donald Trump saw an election emotionally rather than quantitatively.

For him, the blow from Fox News was the ultimate treachery. What’s more, it was a direct challenge to Oczkowski’s numbers. Oz had Arizona for Trump by a narrow but certain margin—between 10,000 and 20,000. The map now was full of narrow-margin states, and if Oczkowski hadn’t gotten it right in Arizona, then other narrow margins might need to be questioned, too, necessarily plunging the celebratory mood into one of uncertainty and doubt.

Uncertainty and doubt were not places Trump could easily occupy.

And the stakes here weren’t psychological only for the president or for the celebration already in progress or for the supporters on hand, but for the broader map. If this was a squeaker, if this was going down to the wire, then perception easily became the margin of victory. If Fox, the president’s certain ally, was calling an extremely close state for Biden, then that might empower other close calls by other networks. It was a hell of a lot harder to claw back from a called race than it was from an undecided one.

What had just happened was also a tell. The astonishment at the Fox call in the Map Room—that it seemed like such a senseless slap across the face—meant that the Trump team had truly thought Arizona was safe and not in any way equivocal. This was not disappointment that Fox had made the call against them; it was incredulity. Meaning: all their expectations could be off, way off. The Trump premium on good news was pushing all the narrow margins solidly their way. This was the illusion that Fox was now challenging.