There’s no sign of any imminent acceptance of the election results from outgoing President Donald Trump. He claims that widespread fraud plagued the recent presidential election — and he claims that, when considering only the legal votes, he himself decisively won. This perspective is delusional. There’s no legitimate evidence for the claim that, when considering only the legal votes, Donald Trump won the election — the Department of Homeland Security, Attorney General Bill Barr, and local election officials around the country have all confirmed as much. During a weekend interview with Fox, Trump nonetheless reiterated his election-related delusions, claiming that Biden “lost and lost badly.”
Trump’s comments are like saying that the sun is purple and the moon is made of cheese. He can’t just speak an alternate reality into existence, but his willfully ignorant self-obsession seems to take precedent for Trump. Trump told Fox host Brian Kilmeade as follows during an interview recorded at the Army-Navy football game on Saturday:
‘The election was over at 10 o’clock in the evening. I had won. It was 97, 98 percent. All of the bookies all over the world were saying, the election’s over. They wouldn’t even take bets on it, and then all of the sudden around 11 o’clock ballots start getting dropped… Tens of thousands of ballots were being illegally dropped. The machines are the worst… these machines are controlling our country. It was really a sham and a shame.’
Who cares what “bookies” say? Bookies don’t decide elections! More broadly — Trump’s comments are simply delusional. An agency of the Department of Homeland Security has unequivocally stated that there is “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” Right-wingers with affidavits who simply don’t know what they’re talking about don’t magically prove otherwise. Trump is profoundly ignorant.
While speaking with Kilmeade, Trump also characterized the imminent Biden presidency as “illegitimate.” He stated as follows:
‘I worry about the country having an illegitimate president. That’s what I worry about — a president that lost and lost badly. This wasn’t, like, a close election. You look at Georgia — we won Georgia big. We won Pennsylvania big. We won Wisconsin big — we won it big.’
Check out his comments below:
Trump says this without a shred of irony: "I worry about the country having an illegitimate president. That's what I worry about. A president that lost and lost badly. This wasn't, like, a close election." pic.twitter.com/vFD5HN2ZDR
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 13, 2020
The scope of fraud that Trump and his allies have alleged took place would likely require the cooperation of thousands and thousands of people from across the country from just about all levels of government and election administration. What about the conservative and liberal judges across the country who have consistently rejected the Trump team’s fraud claims? Would Trump suggest that they’re in on the fraud as well? Speaking with Kilmeade, Trump insisted that “no judge has had the courage… to allow it to be heard,” but he is simply not correct. Judges have repeatedly considered the fundamental merits or lack thereof in Trump-allied election cases — and these cases have repeatedly failed.
The U.S. Supreme Court itself recently considered an election-related case that Trump supported. Two justices said that they’d have heard the case — but not granted the relief that Trump and his allies wanted, meaning the invalidation of the election outcome in four states where Biden won. Watch Trump’s comments on Fox below:
"Who isn't disappointed?" — Trump concludes his interview with Brian Kilmeade by attacking Bill Barr for not doing more to impact the election for him pic.twitter.com/bnl8P5orbH
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 13, 2020
