MSNBC reporter confronts Trump toady Grenell and demands evidence of alleged voter fraud
Mainstream media is finally fighting back.
After years of being subjected to — and dutifully reporting on — the lies and misinformation that the Trump administration continually tried to shove down their throats without a shred of evidence for the president’s overblown assertions, reporters are at last becoming more aggressive in confronting GOP mouthpieces when they make clearly unsubstantiated claims about election fraud as the ballot counting comes down to the wire.
The Trump campaign — in a telling sign of how conspicuously they have blurred the lines between the supposedly non-partisan U.S. intelligence community and their efforts to ensure another term for the incumbent president — sent former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell to Nevada to host a press conference to announce a lawsuit to stop the counting of what it calls “illegal votes” in the state.
Alleging that there are “tens of thousands” of people who voted in Nevada who no longer actually live in the state — a highly unlikely conjecture — the campaign claimed that it is not seeking to stop the vote but rather ensure that its own definitions of what does and does not constitute a “legal“ vote are followed by local election officials.
“We are confident that when all legal votes are tallied — and only legal votes are tallied — President Trump will win the state of Nevada,” Grenell told Fox News.
Grenell and his co-hosts of the press conference — former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, chairman of the American Conservative Union Matt Schlapp, and Nevada GOP Chair Michael McDonald — are trying to claim that Nevada election officials haven’t provided answers as to why they haven’t had a “check” on mail ballots, which the campaign alleges were sent to apartments where individuals no longer lived but were nonetheless subsequently filled out and cast, according to their desperate allegations.
“A source familiar with the lawsuit told Fox News that campaign officials have proof that people who have died have been found to have voted,” the cable news network reported, ignoring the fact that Republicans have actually sent a dead man to the state legislature in North Dakota, after he contracted COVID-19 and passed away in October after ballots were too late to be changed.
The same source also claimed that there has been “no observation for signature matches whatsoever” and said, in general, there have not been observers watching the counting — specifically in Clark County. “We have proof they are counting illegal votes,” the source said.
Rather than simply accept the assertions without proof — and in defiance of reporters’ own observations of the poll monitors from both parties during the ballot counting — MSNBC reporter Jacob Soboroff pursued Grenell after the press conference to confront him on the inconsistencies in his claims and to demand to see some proof of what the campaign was trying to sell to the American public.
Luckily, his encounter with the former acting intelligence chief was broadcast live as he intercepted and grilled Grenell while constantly peppering him with objective reality.
BREAKING: @jacobsoboroff demands evidence from Ric Grenell, Trump adviser and former acting director of national intelligence, to back up his assertions about votes in Nevada. pic.twitter.com/glaBjSHJk8
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) November 5, 2020
Add your name to states not to cave Trump. COUNT EVERY VOTE!
Bravo to Soboroff for countering the blatant partisan propaganda that the Trump surrogates were attempting to seamlessly peddle to the public.
If only the media could have done a more aggressive and convincing job of refuting the administration’s lies beginning four years ago, we wouldn’t be waiting breathlessly for the late tabulations from five states to figure out who actually won the election.
At least now they are finally stepping up to combat the libelous labeling of their investigative efforts as “fake news” and making a greater effort to call Trump’s lies out for what they are.
If only the 49% of Americans who believe that someone with Trump’s abysmal track record — in every aspect of his job — deserves a second term could be convinced.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
Original reporting by John Roberts and Brooke Singman at Fox News and by Jacob Soboroff at MSNBC.
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