 |
| Members of Donald Trump's cabinet and staff listen to his speech on elections. (Getty) |
Major U.S. television networks largely ignored or downplayed Donald Trump's speech last night about "fair and honest elections," and it proved to be a wise decision as the speech focused on allegations that China has meddled in U.S. elections, dubious claims that voter rolls are stuffed with non-citizens, and otherwise consisted mostly of Trump rehashing old, debunked grievances from 2020. In a report at Forbes, Sara Dorn writes:
President Donald Trump said he is releasing classified material he claims shows China stole voter files starting in the 2020 election—making the allegations in a highly anticipated prime-time address as he has continued disparaging the U.S. elections system despite no evidence of widespread fraud.
Trump said the intelligence, gathered by a White House task force and the president's intelligence advisory board, shows China "carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history" by allegedly accessing 220 million U.S. voter files.
He alleged the so-called "deep state," a term widely used by MAGA Republicans to describe a purported secretive group of Democrats and high powered individuals, covered up China's involvement.
Was Trump dealing in new material? Not exactly, Dorn writes:
CNN reported the documents Trump referred to were reviewed and the allegations they contain have been known for years. . . .
Trump made sweeping allegations discrediting the integrity of the U.S. elections systems, but stopped short of claiming the alleged Chinese meddling altered the results of the 2020 election. In fact, as we reported yesterday at Legal Schnauzer, Trump has admitted numerous times that he lost to Joe Biden in 2020 -- and those on the inside of the Trump organization told him the election was conducted in a "fair and square" manner.
Perhaps the speech's best quality was that it was short, 25 minutes. On the downside, it was heavy on allegations that reporters called "wild" or "unhinged" while being light on facts to back them up. In fact, Trump's content tended to produce eye rolls among watchers who actually know a thing or two about elections. From the Forbes report:
"It's the rantings of a pathetic, unserious person. . . the president knows virtually nothing about the American elections system," Rep. Joseph Morelle, D-N.Y. told C-SPAN. "He has no idea what he's talking about . . . there is no basis in fact to almost anything he said."
In other words, it was mostly "sound and fury, signifying nothing" -- typical Trump, although it was unusual in its brevity. Speaking of fury, Trump did not take kindly to being treated like an afterthought by major networks. According to a report at Associated Press, ABC, NBC, and CNN did not televise the speech live, and all generally relegated it to streaming platforms that typically draw a fraction of the audience that is drawn on the primary broadcast channels. CBS joined the speech late and cut out early. Ouch!
In the end, the content of Trump's speech might charitably be labeled a "nothing burger" while the networks claimed center ring by collectively flashing Trump -- long their nemesis -- an extended middle finger. A report at The Daily Beast focused heavily on the broadcast angle. David Gardner writes:
Donald Trump launched a blistering attack on America’s TV networks after they refused to screen his prime-time address detailing his crackpot claims of election rigging on Thursday night.
Furious at the snub, the president claimed that ABC and NBC should lose their broadcast licenses.
Even the networks that covered the speech live questioned the authenticity of Trump’s claims that America’s democracy-defining voting system was corrupted.
MAGA-coded CBS noted much of what the president said about election rigging was “false” before broadcasting most of the address from the White House East Room.
And Fox News admitted after the speech that it had been unable to confirm some of the claims Trump made about election abuse in the United States.
Speaking in a hoarse voice and reading from a teleprompter, Trump said: “In a rare move, NBC and ABC Fake news have both said that they would not cover this speech. They knew what it was about, but because of the fact that they don’t like the topic -- and they know how corrupt our system is, and they don’t want to reveal it.”
He angrily claimed that the networks and other media outlets were “part of a plot.”
Trump didn't fare any better on CNN, a network that often has been the target of his wrath and cutting remarks -- especially directed toward star reporter Kaitlan Collins. Gardner writes:
CNN, a favorite Trump target, blew off Trump’s grandstand speech as old news. The president insisted that declassified intelligence documents proved a pattern of fraudulent voting in elections.
But CNN’s Senior National Security reporter Zachary Cohen insisted: “None of the declassified information supports the claim that any previous election results—including the 2020 presidential contest that Trump lost—were manipulated by foreign interference or fraud in a way that would’ve changed the outcome."
What about Trump's two primary claims (1) China has made a habit of meddling in U.S. elections; and (2) Large numbers of non-citizens have been found on voter rolls? An analysis from AFP and Yahoo! concludes that both claims are overblown:
Trump accused China of "the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China's illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files."
He later claimed China attempted "to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden."
In the United States, however, voter files are largely matters of public record that states are required to maintain and which are regularly sold.
Trump long has made a habit of discounting conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies. He appears to be doing that again with the China claims. Here are POLITICO's conclusions regarding claims of hundreds of thousands of non-citizens on U.S. voter rolls":
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says his agency found thousands of non-citizens on voter rolls in California and three other states as President Donald Trump prepared to renew his focus on election security with a speech to the nation.
DHS said a preliminary review uncovered tens of thousands of non-citizens on the voter rolls in New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania, and nearly two hundred thousand in California, according to a draft press release viewed Thursday by POLITICO.
The press release, which did not say whether there was any evidence of actual voting by non-citizens or explain how DHS reached its finding, was circulated inside the agency ahead of Trump's planned prime time speech in which he had promised to reveal "really big news" on election security.
It is also not clear how DHS obtained the data. While some voter registration records are publicly available, the Trump Justice Department has sued more than two dozen states across the U.S. for this type of data. All 15 judges who have ruled on those cases so far have rejected the requests as overly broad and without a clear purpose.
Asked for comment on the DHS press release, California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office referred to a statement on social media in which he noted that Trump has repeatedly made false claims about elections.
"California law is clear: You MUST be a U.S. citizen to vote state and federal elections," Newsom said on X. "Voter fraud is EXTREMELY RARE — and almost always committed by U.S. citizens."
The draft press release states that "reviews of the four states' records" found 190,832 non-citizens registered in California; 35,152 in New Jersey; 15,903 in Nevada; and 14,576 in Pennsylvania. It does not indicate that DHS found evidence that non-citizens cast ballots or explain how it reached a number that appears to be higher than previous reviews have found.
A federal judge recently found that the citizenship database created by DHS erroneously classified U.S. citizens in a large number of cases as ineligible voters.
One California political figure picked up on Republican hypocrisy and fired a zinger in Trump's direction:
California Democratic Assembly member Marc Berman, the author of several state election laws, said in a statement that DHS should focus on Trump's baseless conspiracy theories about his 2020 election loss.
"If Secretary Mullin wants to investigate voter fraud in America, I suggest he start with his boss," Berman said. "The only person who has been caught demanding that election officials make up thousands of votes is President Donald J. Trump, who begged the Georgia Secretary of State to 'find 11,780 votes' to steal the 2020 presidential election."
.jpeg)