FACT FOCUS: Trump, in Republican convention video, alludes to false claim 2020 election was stolen
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives on third day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
DONALD TRUMP, alluding that the 2020 vote was stolen: “Whether you vote early, absentee, by mail or in person, we are going to protect the vote. That’s the most important thing we have to do is protect the vote. Keep your eyes open because these people want to cheat and they do cheat. And frankly, it’s the only thing they do well.”
THE FACTS: In a prerecorded video at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, former President Donald Trump referenced baseless claims he made repeatedly after he lost the 2020 presidential race — that the election was “rigged” and that Democrats cheated to put President Joe Biden in the White House.
Biden earned 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, the same margin that Trump had when he beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, which he repeatedly described as a “landslide.” (Trump ended up with 304 electoral votes because two electors defected.) Biden achieved victory by prevailing in key states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
Trump’s allegations of massive voting fraud have been refuted by a variety of judges, state election officials and an arm of his own administration’s Homeland Security Department.
In 2020, then-Attorney General William Barr told the AP that no proof of widespread voter fraud had been uncovered. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” he said at the time.
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