Trump's repeated election lies in the Rogan interview. Here are the facts

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In his three-hour interview with host Joe Rogan, Donald Trump delved into his false claims about voting, voter fraud, and his loss in the 2020 presidential election, which helped fuel some of these claims.

The interview, published on Friday night, occurred on the same day that the former president, on his social network, again published threats to sue lawyers, voters and electoral officials who he considers have “cheated” in the elections of 2024.

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Here's a look at some of the Republican presidential candidate's claims and truth.

Trump lost the 2020 election

What Trump said: “I won according to a proverb; they say I lost according to a proverb; I didn't lose.”

THE FACTS: Trump lost in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump's claims that fraud cost him his race have been repeatedly investigated.

Trump's attorney general said there were no signs of major fraud. The Republican-controlled Michigan state Senate, one of the swing states where Trump alleged fraud, reached the same conclusion after a lengthy investigation. An investigation by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Audit Office ordered by the GOP-controlled state Legislature in another state where Trump claimed to have been defrauded into winning also found no significant fraud.

Rogan laughed when Trump argued, correctly, that his loss was close. Trump narrowly lost the election in six swing states. If about 81,000 votes had been reversed, Trump could have won Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin and gained enough support in the Electoral College to remain president.

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Trump made a mistake by mentioning this margin, which amounted to 22,000 votes.

Judges have ruled against Trump again and again on the merits

What Trump said: “What happened is that the judges didn't want to touch it. They will say: You have no position. They did not comment on the substance.”

Facts: This is not true. Trump and his supporters lost more than 50 lawsuits in their attempt to overturn the election.

A group of Republican-affiliated election lawyers and legal scholars reviewed all of Trump's lawsuits challenging the 2020 election and found that only 20 were dismissed by judges before a hearing on the merits. In 30 cases, the rulings against Trump came after hearings on the merits.

In the remaining 14 cases, the report from Stanford University's Hoover Institution found, Trump and his allies withdrew their demands before even reaching the merits stage. “In many cases, after making exaggerated allegations of wrongdoing, Trump's legal representatives showed up in court or state proceedings empty-handed and then returned to their rallies and media campaigns to repeat the same baseless claims,” the report says. report.

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Almost all states already use ballots

What Trump said: “We should go to the ballots.”

The facts: Both Trump and Rogan argued that voting machines are unreliable and that the United States should rely on paper ballots. Trump even cited his billionaire supporter Elon Musk's enthusiasm for such a change.

However, almost all parts of the country have already made this change.

In 2020, more than 90% of U.S. election officials used paper ballots, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The following year, the Federal Election Assistance Commission changed its guidelines to recommend the use of paper in each jurisdiction.

The only state that does not use paper ballots or any type of paper is Louisiana, governed by Republicans.

Republicans and Democrats have encouraged voting by mail during the pandemic

What Trump said: “They used the coronavirus to cheat.”

THE FACTS: Trump's central argument is that a major Democratic conspiracy changed voting procedures during the coronavirus pandemic to make voting by mail more popular, and that the conspirators then rigged the election against him through those votes by mail. This is not what happened.

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When the pandemic first hit during the 2020 presidential primaries in March, Republican and Democratic election officials quickly resorted to encouraging mail-in voting to avoid overcrowded polls. This was relatively uncontroversial until Trump turned against it, claiming it would sow the seeds of possible fraud.

In doing so, Trump was going back to the usual playbook, claiming that any election he didn't win was fraudulent. He made this claim about the first race he lost, the 2016 Iowa Republican caucus. He even claimed that he lost the popular vote in 2016 due to illegal immigrant voting, although the presidential commission he created to find evidence of this disbanded without finding it. . About any evidence.

The 2020 elections were free of significant fraud

The facts: Isolated cases of electoral fraud have long occurred, but in modern times they have not reached the levels necessary to influence national elections. An Associated Press review found fewer than 475 cases in the six key states where Trump lost by more than 300,000 votes, too few to change the outcome.

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