Trump reheats old election conspiracy theories

**Brian Tyler Cohen** (0:01)
Donald Trump dives into a new round of election denialism, and I've got three interviews. Senator Jon Ossoff discusses that very election denialism, Senator Adam Schiff talks Todd Blanche's disastrous Senate confirmation hearing, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta discusses his new lawsuit seeking to block the Warner Brothers' Paramount merger. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie.
We are once again neck deep in a new round of election denialism as Trump has began issuing the same reheated claims of foreign interference and rigged votes as he has in every other election that's taken place in this country. So here's a brief smattering of what that looked like at his speech on Thursday night.

**Donald Trump** (0:41)
Tonight, I'm announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence, revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. The People's Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history. China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections. Evidence of fraud has been buried. And yet we still have elections with no voter ID, no proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail. Congress must pass the Save America Act.

**Brian Tyler Cohen** (1:20)
That China got access to 200 million voter files, Venezuela was using software that could flip votes, a quarter of a million non-citizens were on the voter rolls. Now, fact checkers have already come out and debunked all of this. For example, the voter files that China got access to are largely available for sale online. Venezuela, experimenting with being able to manipulate their software is not something that could have been done abroad. That's according to the CIA.
And those 250,000 non-citizens on the voter rolls is exaggerated by about 225,000. And there is no evidence that the undocumented immigrants on the rolls have actually cast any ballots. It's worth noting that this issue in particular was studied in Utah. No Democrats in that state to gum up the works. Those Utah Republicans looked at the entire 2 million voters on the voter rolls because they were searching for undocumented immigrants. They found one and that person never actually cast a ballot.
And then, of course, after Trump's speech, there was this moment later in the evening from MSNOW's Vaughn Hilliard. So this is Jon Solomon. He's a prosecutor that Trump hired at the White House to investigate elections.

**Jon Ossoff** (2:31)
You acknowledge that there were no votes changed in 2020?

**Rob Bonta** (2:34)
All I can acknowledge is what the intelligence shows, right? I only know the intelligence committee has zero evidence that someone has flipped, that a foreign power flipped, they vote in 2020, 2022 or 2024 And you have no, you're able to acknowledge that- We're not through all the documents.

**Jon Ossoff** (2:46)
You're able to acknowledge that Venezuela has not tampered with voting machines in the United States.

**Rob Bonta** (2:50)
No, the intelligence is very clear.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:53)
They did it on their own machines.

**Rob Bonta** (2:55)
Why is it important that they did it on their machines? Their machine protocols are the same as America.

**Brian Tyler Cohen** (2:59)
Why? Because for a long time, they did it exactly the same.

**Jon Ossoff** (3:02)
And so the 2020 election was in fact the results as we, the American public thought.

**Rob Bonta** (3:07)
I'm still researching, so let me, let me, I'm just the first one to say the documents. But there's no intelligence, you can get on there.

**Jon Ossoff** (3:12)
There is no intelligence at the election.

**Rob Bonta** (3:15)
It would have said that Donald Trump was president.

**Brian Tyler Cohen** (3:17)
So even the guy who Trump hired expressly to investigate elections says there was no foreign interference. And of course, you can hear Carolyn Levitt in full freakout mode trying to shuttle him away.
So why is Trump doing this? Because he is desperate to seize control of how elections are run in this country. His DOJ is suing 31 states for their unredacted voter rolls. DHS is demanding access to run those roles through citizenship verification systems, which keep wrongly flagging eligible voters. You've got the Save America Act that would amount to a federal takeover of state-run elections. You've got Republicans refusing to rule out sending ICE to the polls. So they're definitely trying, but they haven't been able to succeed. They have been stymied by the courts and judges and the filibuster, you name it. So clearly, they need a new route, a new justification to shoehorn through some more aggressive action.
But you need a pretext. You can't just declare that you're taking over elections. And so what we're seeing right now with these speeches, and more speeches, I presume, that are going to come in the future, is that foundation being laid to try and claim fraud? That, you know, the system is broken, and China or Venezuela or whatever other country Trump lands on this week is going to steal our elections, and as such, he has to take extraordinary action to prevent that from happening. Is it true? Not at all. But Trump doesn't need it to be true. He just needs people to believe it. And this is a recurring theme. Remember this from the aftermath of the 2020 election?