The Trump Conspiracy

This is a discussion about President Trump's claims of voter fraud in the 2016 election. Despite winning the Electoral College, he falsely claimed that he also won the popular vote if illegal votes were deducted. Trump established a commission on election integrity, which was later disbanded due to lack of evidence. Studies have consistently shown that widespread voter fraud is not a significant issue. However, Trump and some Republicans continue to push this narrative without evidence. The discussion concludes by highlighting the importance of factual information in the face of conspiracy theories. Whether you're a curious mind or an avid learner, this is the place to fill the gaps in your mental library. So tune in, get comfortable, and let's uncover the mysteries that lie just beyond our reach. This is Fill the Gap, where curiosity meets insight. Did you notice my quotes come too loud? Watch. Fill the Gap. It's the toughest, worst thing. It's not just the words. You know, it's interesting just when you look at the previous election. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. 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It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. It's the people. Trump won the election, which you might think would stop him from insisting the whole election was rigged, but you would be wrong. Less than three weeks after beating Hillary Clinton, even while losing the popular vote by almost three million, Trump took to Twitter to argue that millions of illegal votes had been cast. Quote, in addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally, Trump tweeted at the end of November 2016. Then days after he was sworn in, Trump hosted a bipartisan group of lawmakers at the White House where, according to the Washington Post, he told them he would have won the popular vote if three to five million illegal votes had not been cast for Clinton. And he provided, stop me if you've heard this before, zero evidence to back up that massive controversial claim. In May 2017, Trump put the official weight of the White House behind this conspiracy theory, announcing that he had issued an executive order establishing the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity with Vice President Mike Pence as chairman and noted vote fraud purveyor Chris Kobach as vice chair. A lot of talk about voter fraud and whether voter fraud happens out there anymore. And the truth is that voter fraud is a violation of the right of every American. Within a year, the commission had been disbanded. Now Trump blamed the failure on the unwillingness of states to hand over proprietary voter information, insisting that there was still, quote, substantial evidence of voter fraud, end quote. Now the problem with that claim by Trump is, well, it isn't true, at least according to Maine's secretary of state, quote, I have reviewed the commission documents made available to me and they do not contain evidence of widespread voter fraud, wrote Matthew Dunlap, a Democrat, in a letter to Kobach and Pence that was obtained by CNN. Now, sidebar, Kobach's crusade for voter integrity has not exactly translated into political victory. Instead, Kobach lost the 2018 governor's race in Kansas to a Democrat, despite Kansas being one of the most conservative states in the country. Now that finding, or lack of a finding by the president's committee, is consistent with a series of studies that make clear there is no evidence of widespread coordinated election fraud. Here's one. Loyola Law School professor Justin Leavitt tracked U.S. elections from 2000 to 2014 in search of voter fraud, or as he put it, quote, specific credible allegations that someone may have pretended to be someone else at the polls. Leavitt found 31 such instances out of more than 1 billion, yes, billion with a B, votes cast. 31 out of a billion. Here's another study, a five-year one on voter fraud that was commissioned by George W. Bush's administration that reached that same conclusion back in 2007, wrote the New York Times at the time of the study, quote, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, end quote. Now none of this has stopped Trump from continuing to claim or insinuate that Democrats are somehow stealing elections. A lot of people, my opinion and based on proof, that try and get in illegally and actually vote illegally. We just want to let them know that there will be prosecutions at the highest level. So on the one side, we have a series of studies making clear that widespread voter fraud simply isn't a thing. On the other, we have Republican politicians led by the president of the United States arguing without any evidence that voter fraud is clear and present as a danger to democracy. These two arguments are not equal. One is backed by facts and evidence. The other is a conspiracy theory. And that is the point. We make New Point episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Check them all out. You are a blessing today and be someone else. All right. Here we go again in 2024. And they try to change a lot of rules when it comes to voting in the various states because the Republicans... He lost by the same margin as he beat Hillary. He lost by that same margin. He lost. But they still maintain this narrative about something being stolen. It wasn't nowhere close to being stolen. But it is. Your ass is lost. You can't seem to accept it. And it looks like in 2024 it's going to be the same thing. We'll see. Build the gap hard, kids. We're trying to build that gap of information. Have a great month.