JANUARY 6TH: How Donald Trump Almost Stole The 2020 Election

0:00It's August 12th, 2016. The US

0:02presidential election is less than 3

0:03months away. And for Donald Trump,

0:05things aren't looking very good. Whilst

0:06it was extremely impressive that he

0:08managed to win the Republican nomination

0:09as a complete political outsider, no one

0:12seriously thought he stood a chance of

0:13becoming the president come November.

0:15His opponent Hillary Clinton was a

0:17juggernaut of the Democratic Party who'd

0:19served in the Senate as Secretary of

0:20State under Obama. And with a last name

0:22like that, as she seemed destined to

0:24become the first female president of the

0:26United States. Now, sure, she wasn't the

0:28most likable candidate, and it's hard to

0:29imagine a human being with less

0:30charisma, but those issues were nothing

0:33in comparison to the PR nightmare that

0:35was Donald J. Trump. He had zero

0:37experience in government. His

0:38personality was extremely abrasive, and

0:40he was always shrouded in one

0:41controversy or another. This is why

0:43Trump found himself trailing in every

0:44single poll by the middle of August,

0:46with the New York Times giving him just

0:47a 12% chance of winning the November

0:50election. As I said, things did not look

0:52good. Trump was staring down the

0:53prospect of a total electoral

0:55annihilation and he needed to do

0:56something if he wanted to keep his

0:58presidential ambitions alive. So with

1:00the help of his closest advisers, Trump

1:02began to develop a backup plan. It was

1:03going to be an extremely risky gambit,

1:05but given how far he trailed in the

1:07polls, there really wasn't all that much

1:08to lose. So on the 12th of August, in

1:10front of a group of his passionate

1:12supporters in Altuna, Pennsylvania,

1:14Trump said this.

1:15>> She can't beat what's happening here.

1:17The only way they can beat it, in my

1:19opinion, and I mean this 100%.

1:22If in certain sections of the state they

1:25cheat. Okay. Huh? Cheating. That is

1:29definitely a bold claim to make. It

1:31wasn't substantiated. There was no

1:33evidence provided, but the message was

1:34undeniable. If I lose, it's because

1:37crooked Hillary cheated. Now, obviously,

1:39these comments drew heavy criticism from

1:41just about everyone you can think of.

1:42But for Trump, that didn't really

1:44matter. For the remaining 88 days of his

1:46campaign, these baseless claims of a

1:48rigged election would become a prominent

1:50part of his strategy. First of all, it's

1:52rigged. And I'm afraid the election's

1:54going to be rigged. I have to be honest.

1:55We're competing in a rigged election.

1:57This is a rigged election, folks. Okay.

1:59This guy has 18. I have nine. I won the

2:01state. No. Well, he didn't. No. Well,

2:02that's the way the system works. I said,

2:03"Well, then it's a rigged system." The

2:05election is being rigged by corrupt

2:07media pushing completely false

2:10allegations and outright lies in an

2:13effort to elect her president. They said

2:15there's no way we're three down. Even

2:17the polls are crooked. I'm telling you,

2:19look, we're in a rigged system, folks.

2:21We're in a rigged system.

2:22>> In mid-occtober, with his chance of

2:24winning now at just 7%, Trump would take

2:26to his favorite social media platform to

2:28spread these baseless allegations even

2:30further. Hillary Clinton should have

2:31been prosecuted and should be in jail.

2:33Instead, she is running for president in

2:35what looks like a rigged election. Of

2:36course, there is large-scale voter fraud

2:38happening on and before election day.

2:39Why do Republican leaders deny what is

2:41going on? So naive. The election is

2:43absolutely being rigged by the dishonest

2:45and distorted media pushing crooked

2:47Hillary, but also at many polling

2:49places. Sad. Again, there was literally

2:51zero proof to support any of these

2:53claims. But as far as Trump was

2:55concerned, it was working fantastically

2:57because his supporters were actually

2:59starting to doubt the democratic

3:00process. In fact, during the final

3:02presidential debate on October 19th,

3:04Chris Walls would ask Trump if he would

3:06unequivocally accept the result of the

3:08election. And this is how he responded.

3:10>> I will look at it at the time. I'm not

3:12looking at anything now. I'll look at it

3:14at the time.

3:15>> Wow. That doesn't inspire much

3:17confidence. Were we seriously heading

3:18towards a situation where a presidential

3:20nominee would outright reject the

3:22results of an election? And when Al Gore

3:24lost in 2000 by a heartbreaking margin

3:26of 0.009% 09% in Florida, he still got

3:29on stage and graciously conceded to Bush

3:31once the results were finalized. But do

3:33we really think Trump is the type of

3:35person to do that? Even with Hillary on

3:37track for a commanding 320 electoral

3:39votes, how far would Donald Trump go to

3:42undermine her victory? I guess only time

3:44would tell. But come election day,

3:46something weird happened.

3:49Right now, a historic moment. We can now

3:51project the winner of the presidential

3:53race. CNN projects Donald Trump wins the

3:56presidency.

3:57>> What started off as unlikely, impossible

4:02is now reality.

4:03>> In one of the single greatest upsets in

4:05American political history, Trump won

4:07the 2016 election. Even though he lost

4:09the popular vote by almost 3 million, he

4:11outperformed Hillary in key battleground

4:13states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and

4:15Michigan for a total of 306 electoral

4:18votes. After months spent undermining

4:20the nation's trust in the electoral

4:21process, those concerns had all but

4:23evaporated because, well, Trump was now

4:25the president-elect. As Tiger Woods once

4:27famously put it, "Winning takes care of

4:29everything." So, the backup plan was

4:31never needed. But with all that in mind,

4:33what would Trump have done if things

4:34went a little differently? Or what if

4:36those battleground states with extremely

4:37thin margins went the other way? What if

4:40the Americans who stayed at home,

4:41assuming Hillary was a guaranteed win,

4:43actually mobilized and went out to vote?

4:46You know what? If Trump lost the

4:47election and that backup plan was the

4:50only plan,

5:03Amen.

5:09[singing]

5:30The rain is

5:41God.

5:52[singing]

6:17So before we can go anywhere near the

6:19attack which occurred on January 6th, we

6:21first need to understand the timeline of

6:22events which preceded it. And trust me,

6:25that is a very long timeline. As I'm

6:27sure you're aware, violent riders don't

6:29tend to materialize out of thin air and

6:31attack the capital on their own. No. To

6:33be convinced of something like that, it

6:35takes a continual stream of lies and

6:37deception, preferably from the single

6:39most powerful man in the world. So, with

6:41that in mind, let's rewind exactly 1

6:43year to January of 2020, aka the place

6:47where this all starts. The first 3 years

6:49of Trump's presidency have been

6:50tumultuous, to say the very least. But

6:52going into year 4, he was actually in a

6:54strong spot for election. Now, there are

6:56a lot of reasons for this, but firstly,

6:57and most importantly, the economy was

6:59booming. Unemployment was low at just

7:013.6%, the stock market was surging, and

7:04consumer confidence was nearing an

7:06all-time high. If a line is going up,

7:08voters are probably happy. Now,

7:09secondly, he beat the case. In late

7:11December, the House of Representatives

7:13voted to impeach Trump over the whole

7:14Biden Ukraine scandal. For the sake of

7:16brevity, we won't open that can of

7:18worms, but he was ultimately acquitted

7:19by the Senate in early February. Given

7:21how serious the allegations were, you'd

7:23probably expect this to hurt Trump in

7:24the long run. But no, actually, the

7:26exact opposite happened. To a lot of

7:28Americans, the impeachment felt like a

7:29partisan witch hunt to take down the

7:31president. And this completely backfired

7:33on Democrats. This can be seen in the

7:35fact that Trump's approval rating

7:36actually increased to an all-time high

7:37of 49% shortly after his acquitt. And

7:40finally, as a little cherry on top,

7:42Trump was the incumbent. Only four

7:44presidents had lost their re-election

7:45bid in the past century, which meant

7:46history was on his side. I'm not going

7:48to lie, there was a lot for Trump to

7:50feel confident about going into an

7:52election year. And barring some

7:53catastrophic global event which would

7:55bring the entire world to its knees,

7:58another four years in the White House

7:59was certainly on the table.

8:03Good evening and it's great to have you

8:04with [music] us here on a Thursday

8:05night. And we begin with that new case,

8:07the first humanto human case of the

8:09Corona virus here in the US.

8:10>> The Corona virus cases have risen to

8:12more than 7800 worldwide, including 170

8:17deaths. Today, the World Health

8:18Organization declaring a global health

8:21emergency.

8:22>> Yeah, you knew what was coming. In

8:23December 2019, there was an outbreak of

8:25novel corona virus in Wuhan, China. And

8:27by the end of January, the disease had

8:29already reached American shores. Early

8:30reports suggested that it was highly

8:32infectious. It caused pneumonia like

8:33symptoms, and in the worst cases, it

8:36could turn deadly. By February 1st, the

8:38disease had already killed something

8:39like 300 people in China with more than

8:4214,000 confirmed cases. Experts warned

8:44that it was only a matter of time until

8:46there was a similar outbreak in the

8:47United States, and it would undoubtedly

8:49require a strong government response.

8:51This was certainly not the news Trump

8:53was hoping for going into an election

8:54year. He was riding a strong wave of

8:56support, and this disease looked as

8:58though it was about to unravel all the

9:00progress he'd made with the American

9:01public. But look, let's not forget

9:03something here. National emergencies are

9:05what define great leaders. In the same

9:06way that Lincoln had the Civil War, FDI

9:08had the Great Depression, and Clinton

9:10had his own promiscuity, CO looked as

9:12though it was going to be the defining

9:13challenge of Trump's presidency. If he

9:15could successfully guide the country

9:16through an unprecedented global

9:18pandemic, not only would that cement his

9:20legacy in the history books, it would

9:21also look pretty good to voters come

9:23November. So, as long as he stayed

9:24level-headed, assembled a team of good

9:26advisers, and listened to the experts,

9:29America could come out of this even

9:31stronger. Unfortunately, Donald Trump

9:33did not accomplish any of those three

9:35things. Nowadays, when people are pled

9:36on how well different countries

9:38responded to the pandemic, you'll

9:39usually find the United States sitting

9:40somewhere towards the bottom. And for

9:42good reason. Trump completely botched

9:44his handling of COVID from its very

9:46inception all the way to his last day in

9:48office. On February 26th at a White

9:50House press conference, Trump would tell

9:52reporters this.

9:53>> And again, when you have 15 people and

9:55the 15 within a couple of days is going

9:57to be down to close to zero,

10:00uh, that's a pretty good job we've done.

10:04>> That's right. There were only 15 cases

10:06of COVID in the country. And according

10:08to Donald, they're about to vanish

10:10because, well, why not? But strangely

10:13enough, the amount of cases in America

10:15would actually increase to 1,600 by

10:17mid-March. 2 weeks after that, it would

10:19increase to 163,000. And by the end of

10:21April, just 9 weeks after the first

10:24confirmed case in Seattle, there were

10:26more than 1 million people with CO in

10:28the United States. And 63,000 people had

10:31been killed. Perhaps a slightly

10:33short-sighted prediction from the

10:34president. Most infamously, on April

10:3626th, Trump would recommend this to the

10:39American public.

10:40>> Right. And then I see the disinfectant

10:42where it knocks it out in a minute, one

10:45minute. And is there a way we can do

10:47something like that uh by injection

10:51inside or or almost a cleaning? Because

10:54you see it gets on the lungs and it does

10:57a tremendous number on the lungs. So it'

10:58be interesting to check that. So that

11:00you're going to have to use medical

11:01doctors with. But it sounds it sounds

11:04interesting to me.

11:05>> Wow. Nothing captures the absurdity of

11:07this moment better than the reaction of

11:09Dr. Burks, the coordinator of the

11:10coronavirus task force, who just sits

11:12there in absolute shock and horror as

11:15the most powerful man in the world

11:16claims that injecting disinfectant could

11:19cure CO. Truly beyond parody. Now you

11:22might be thinking, surely people weren't

11:24stupid enough to actually go and do

11:25this. But you'd be dead wrong. The

11:27amount of accidental poisonings with

11:28household disinfectants increased

11:31121% after Trump made these comments

11:34compared to April of 2019. He later went

11:36on to claim that it was a sarcastic

11:38question. But even if we were to be

11:40charitable, why the [ __ ] are you making

11:42a joke like that in the midst of a

11:43pandemic? By June, CO had already killed

11:46tens of thousands of people. The economy

11:48had come to a grinding halt, and most

11:50Americans were trapped inside their

11:51homes. At a time like this, you'd hope

11:53that the president was doing everything

11:54in his ability to get the country back

11:56on track. But unfortunately, you'd once

11:58again be dead wrong. For Trump, his

12:00attention had shifted to one thing and

12:03one thing only. When could he start

12:05campaigning again? Seriously, to quote

12:06Chris Christie, one of Trump's closest

12:08advisers at this time, he was just

12:10beside himself. All he could think about

12:11was the campaign. He didn't talk much

12:13about anything else. Co would come into

12:15it, but really his focus was on the

12:17campaign. Nothing highlights this more

12:18than when Trump pushed to have an indoor

12:20campaign rally in Tulsa on June 20th,

12:22despite the fact his entire Corona virus

12:25task force advised against it. A lot of

12:27states had outright banned large indoor

12:29gatherings at this point because they

12:31were a hot spot for potential outbreaks.

12:32But come on, it had been over 3 months

12:35since his last rally, and he was itching

12:37to get back out there. On Twitter,

12:38Trump's campaign manager bragged about

12:40selling 800,000 tickets for the rally,

12:42which was extremely impressive. But when

12:44June 20th actually rolled around, it was

12:46nothing short of a disaster. Photos from

12:48the rally showed empty seat after empty

12:51seat in what was supposed to be a

12:52triumphant return to the campaign trail.

12:54As it turns out, K-pop fans and people

12:56on Tik Tok had trolled the president by

12:58ordering thousands of tickets with

13:00absolutely zero intention of attending.

13:03In fact, the Tulsa Fire Department

13:04estimated that only 6,200 supporters

13:07attended the rally when the arena had a

13:09capacity of 19,000. The optics of this

13:11were devastating on their own, but Trump

13:13somehow managed to make a bad situation

13:15even worse. 15 minutes after getting on

13:17stage, he would tell his passionate

13:19supporters this. When you test, when you

13:22do testing to that extent, you're going

13:23to find more people. You're going to

13:25find more cases. SO I SAID TO MY PEOPLE,

13:28SLOW THE TESTING DOWN, PLEASE.

13:32They test and they test. We got tests.

13:34If people don't know what's going on, we

13:36got test. We got another one over here.

13:38>> Yeah. Apparently, America should slow

13:40down its CO testing because the numbers

13:42were looking bad. That sounds like a

13:44highly effective strategy for dealing

13:46with a pandemic. And look, just as his

13:48advisers predicted, this rally had dire

13:51consequences. Herman Kaine, who Trump

13:52had recommended for a seat on the

13:54Federal Reserve, wanted to show his

13:55support for the president. So, he flew

13:57to Tulsa to attend this rally. He even

13:58tweeted a photo of himself in the crowd

14:00with other supporters who were all

14:02having a quote fantastic time. However,

14:04in the days that followed, the

14:0574year-old would test positive for CO. A

14:08few days after that, he was hospitalized

14:09and on July 30th, Kane would die due to

14:12complications from COVID. One of the

14:14senior staffers in Trump's campaign team

14:16later told a reporter that we killed

14:18Herman Kaine. Economists from Stanford

14:20would go on to release a study in

14:22October which estimated that the 18

14:23rallies held by Trump between June and

14:25the end of September resulted in more

14:27than 30,000 additional CO infections and

14:30700 deaths. Also, it's important to note

14:32this study didn't account for the more

14:33than 40 rallies which Trump held between

14:35October and November. So, the actual

14:37amount is likely many times higher. As

14:39Chris Christie said, Trump's priority

14:41was campaigning and CO was just a mere

14:43afterthought. A poll released in the

14:45middle of August showed that only 35% of

14:47voters approved Trump's handling of CO

14:49versus 61% who disapproved. With numbers

14:52like that, it's safe to say that 2020

14:54was going very poorly for Trump. And to

14:56make matters worse, there was a second

14:58crisis on the horizon. Now, to new

15:01reports of a controversial police stop

15:03that ended in a death, all caught on

15:05tape. George Floyd repeatedly told the

15:07officers that he could not breathe after

15:09an officer knelt on his neck, pinning

15:12him to the ground during an arrest.

15:14>> I can't breathe. You're

15:15>> talking fine. You're talking fine.

15:16>> Deep breath.

15:17>> Breathe.

15:18>> I can't breathe.

15:19>> On the 25th of May, as America neared

15:21100,000 deaths from CO, a white police

15:23officer named Derek Shelvin killed a

15:25black man named George Floyd after

15:27kneeling on his neck for more than 9

15:29minutes. Despite saying that he couldn't

15:30breathe over 20 times, and with

15:32bystanders urging the officer to stop,

15:34Derek Shelvin did not relent and is now

15:36serving a 22-year prison sentence for

15:38secondderee murder. This case of such

15:40blatant police brutality sparked mass

15:42protests across the United States, once

15:44again, bringing the issue of systemic

15:46racism to the forefront of American

15:48politics. Look, he was already fumbling

15:50his response to CO, but here was a

15:52perfect opportunity for him to make

15:53things right, to showcase his

15:55leadership, and to prove to the American

15:57public that he was the right man for the

15:59job.

16:00>> And then again, an extraordinary line,

16:02when the looting starts, the shooting

16:04starts. The president of the United

16:06States, Brian, your thoughts?

16:07>> Huh, that's definitely a comment you can

16:10make. You know, with protests erupting

16:12in more than 140 cities across the

16:14country, threatening to have people shot

16:16is a notoriously effective means of

16:18deescalation. Behind the scenes, things

16:20didn't look good either. As Trump was

16:22absolutely furious about the chaos and

16:24what he saw as an inadequate response

16:26from state leaders, telling his closest

16:28advisers, "We look weak. We don't look

16:30strong." In Trump's view, this civil

16:32unrest was all a matter of optics, as he

16:34was solely concerned with how this

16:35instability was reflecting on his public

16:38image. During a phone call on how to

16:39manage the situation, Trump urged state

16:41leaders to dominate the protesters or

16:44sorry terrorists is the language he used

16:46or they were going to make everyone

16:47quote look like a bunch of jerks. There

16:49were no calls for calm and no lowering

16:51the temperature. For Trump, it was all

16:53about showing as much force as possible.

16:55This became clear on June 1st during a

16:57press conference at the Rose Garden when

16:59Trump issued this threat. If a city or

17:01state refuses to take the actions that

17:03are necessary to defend the life and

17:06property of their residents, then I will

17:09deploy the United States military and

17:12quickly solve the problem for them. As

17:15we speak, I am dispatching thousands and

17:18thousands of heavily armed soldiers to

17:21stop the rioting, looting, vandalism,

17:25assaults, and the wanting destruction of

17:28property. Towards the end of this press

17:30conference, Trump announced that he was

17:31going to pay his respects to St. John's

17:33Church in Lafayette Square, which had

17:34been damaged by protesters the night

17:36before. This seemed like a nice gesture,

17:38as this was a church every president

17:40since James Madison had attended. But

17:42what followed was one of the most

17:43infamous moments of Trump's presidency.

17:46As nearby protesters were being brutally

17:48dispersed with tear gas and rubber

17:49bullets, the president waddled on camera

17:51to do this.

17:59Bible.

18:00>> I don't think there's any combination of

18:02words which can adequately describe the

18:04absurdity of this moment. Why is he

18:06standing like that? Who holds a Bible

18:08like that? Why does he point and gesture

18:10for a reporter to be quiet like they're

18:12a toddler? And why does this 2 minutes

18:14feel like an eternity? After threatening

18:16to deploy the military to quash

18:18protesters, you decide to stage the most

18:20awkward photo op of all time, they

18:22didn't even alert church authorities

18:24that they planned to do this. Rather

18:26unsurprisingly, this sparked a complete

18:28frenzy. Religious leaders were shocked

18:30that the Bible was being used as a

18:31political prop. Biden tore into him at a

18:34press conference the next day. The media

18:35was relentless in their criticism, and

18:37it even split support amongst his

18:39evangelical base, which is how you know

18:41things were really bad. This was yet

18:44another blunder, putting Trump's

18:45incompetency on full display, which is

18:47only becoming more apparent as time went

18:50on. A poll released on the 9th of June

18:51showed that 65% of people thought that

18:54Trump's response to the protests had

18:56been quote more harmful than helpful.

18:58Now look, the reason I bring up all this

19:00stuff on CO and the George Floyd

19:01protests is to make one thing abundantly

19:04clear. Trump was absolutely [ __ ] his

19:07re-election odds, and I don't say that

19:09lightly. The strong position he found

19:11himself at the beginning of 2020 had all

19:13but evaporated by June. The economy was

19:15in freef fall. Hundreds of thousands of

19:17Americans were dying from CO. He'd

19:19fumbled his response to the murder of

19:20George Floyd. And perhaps most

19:22importantly of all, people were just

19:24sick of Trump and his antics. Nothing

19:27made this clearer than his disastrous

19:29performance in the first presidential

19:30debate, where Trump couldn't help but

19:32insult and interrupt Biden at every

19:35available opportunity.

19:36>> Vote and let your senators know how

19:38strongly you feel. Let vote now. Make

19:41sure you in fact let people know your

19:44senator. I'm not going to answer the

19:46question because that question is a lot

19:48of Supreme Court justice radical left.

19:53As you may remember, they literally had

19:54to adopt new rules to mute microphones

19:56when the other person was talking

19:57because of how bad Trump's behavior was.

20:00When focus groups were pulled

20:01afterwards, almost 70% reported that

20:03they felt annoyed and only 17% felt

20:06informed, which was a complete

20:08embarrassment. In such a tiring year for

20:10all of America, people were sick of the

20:12insults, sick of the lying, and sick of

20:15the incivility. To quote Mitch

20:16McConnell, "Being Donald Trump was

20:18enough for Trump to lose in November."

20:20And look, the overwhelming disapproval

20:22Americans felt towards their president

20:24was no secret to Trump or his team

20:26because they had been sounding the alarm

20:28bells as early as April 27th. That was

20:30the day their leading pollster, Tony

20:32Frizzio, distributed a three-page memo

20:35detailing how Trump was on track for a

20:37spectacular defeat in November if

20:39nothing changed. To quote from it

20:41directly, "Absent a miraculous two-month

20:43recovery for the economy or Biden

20:45literally imploding, there is little

20:46chance that we will find ourselves back

20:48at the position we were in February."

20:50Around this same time, Trump's campaign

20:52manager, Brad Pascal, directly told the

20:54president, "In February, you were on

20:56track to win more than 400 electoral

20:57votes, but now you are losing ground

21:00everywhere." Additionally, on June 18th,

21:02Trump's favorite news network released a

21:04very alarming poll which showed Biden

21:06with a 12point lead over the president.

21:08Now, you could argue that Trump had been

21:10in this exact same situation in 2016

21:12when he was trailing Hillary in all the

21:14polls and still managed to emerge

21:15victorious, but trust me, there was zero

21:18chance that was happening again. That

21:20election had been basically every

21:21pollster's 9/11 and it led them to

21:23adjust how they operated to ensure more

21:26accurate results. So look, I say all of

21:28this to make one key point. Trump had a

21:31terrible 2020. He knew it, his team knew

21:34it, and the American people definitely

21:36knew it. Even if CO never happened and

21:38he was able to maintain his momentum

21:40from the start of the year, Trump still

21:42would have been in for a massive

21:43challenge against Biden come November.

21:45Relative to Hillary, he had a lot more

21:47support amongst the white working class,

21:48which was a group the Democrats

21:50desperately needed to win back if they

21:52wanted any chance of success in 2020. He

21:54was also a political veteran. He had a

21:56history of working across the aisle. He

21:57was down to earth, and most importantly,

22:00he looked to be a source of stability

22:02after 4 years of well, whatever Donald

22:04Trump was. As November 3rd grew closer

22:06and closer, a Biden victory seemed more

22:09and more likely, and Trump knew it. So,

22:11with the odds stacked against him, the

22:13president decided to pull a page out of

22:15his 2016 playbook. Because if he wasn't

22:17going to win this thing legitimately, he

22:19was going to need a backup plan.

22:23In early April, just before his approval

22:25ratings started to fall off a cliff,

22:26Trump began the first stage of a new

22:28backup plan. And things were going to

22:30look a little different this time

22:31around. Back in 2016, when Trump first

22:33made his allegations of election fraud,

22:35there was no semblance of a coherent

22:37strategy. You know, he claimed that

22:38crooked Hillary and the Democrats were

22:40cheating and the entire system was

22:41rigged. But if you wanted any

22:42explanation further than that, you

22:44simply weren't going to get it. However,

22:46for this upcoming election, Trump would

22:48get a little more tactical. To undermine

22:49people's faith in the electoral process,

22:51he was going to target one very specific

22:53thing. Mail-in ballots. You can see the

22:56first stages of this plan unfold at a

22:57press conference on April 7th when Trump

22:59was asked a question about the upcoming

23:01Wisconsin election. The mail ballots are

23:04corrupt in my opinion and they collect

23:06them and they get people to go in and

23:08sign them and then they they're

23:10forgeries in many cases. It's a horrible

23:12thing.

23:13>> Then the following day, Trump would go

23:14after mail and ballots again, this time

23:16on Twitter. Republicans should fight

23:18very hard when it comes to statewide

23:20mail and voting. Democrats are clamoring

23:22for it. Tremendous potential for voter

23:23fraud and for whatever reason doesn't

23:25work out well for Republicans. Then one

23:27day after that on April 9th, Trump would

23:29get borderline conspiratorial during a

23:31press conference

23:32>> because you know the things with

23:34bundling and all of the things that are

23:35happening with uh votes by mail where

23:39thousands of votes are gathered

23:42and I'm not going to say which party

23:44does it, but thousands of votes are

23:45gathered and they come in and they're

23:47dumped in a location and then all of a

23:49sudden you lose elections that you think

23:51you're going to win.

23:52>> I won't stand for it.

23:53>> Dumping thousands of votes. What the

23:55[ __ ] was he talking about? These

23:57baseless claims were especially unusual

23:59because Trump himself had voted with a

24:01mail-in ballot for the 2018 midterm

24:03elections. But anyway, they were pushing

24:05that blatant hypocrisy to one side. But

24:07why was Trump specifically targeting

24:08mail and ballots? Well, look, I don't

24:10want to give the man too much credit.

24:11But as far as destroying a democracy and

24:13overturning legitimate elections go,

24:15Trump had devised a pretty clever plan.

24:18Here's how it worked. If you decide to

24:19go to a polling station on election day

24:21and vote in person, it's ready to be

24:23counted as soon as that station closes.

24:26By contrast, if you decide to mail in

24:28your ballot, it requires a bit more

24:30work. The envelope has to be opened.

24:31There's a barcode inside which needs to

24:33be scanned, and that confirms that

24:34you're actually registered to vote and

24:36that you haven't already voted somewhere

24:37else in the election. Additionally, they

24:39also have to make sure that the

24:40signature on your ballot matches the one

24:42they have in their system. Once all of

24:44that is done, then a mail and ballot can

24:46officially be counted. And as you can

24:47probably guess, that takes considerably

24:49more time than an ordinary in-person

24:51vote. Now, there are some states like

24:53Texas and Florida who do all of this

24:55preparation before election day so the

24:57mail and ballots can be counted at the

24:58same time as the ordinary votes. But

25:00there are also states like Pennsylvania

25:02who don't do this. They have to open the

25:04envelopes, scan the barcodes, and match

25:06the signatures on election night itself,

25:08which means the results from the mail

25:09and ballots take a lot more time to be

25:11processed. Now, because Trump was

25:13undermining the legitimacy of mail and

25:15ballots by calling them fraudulent, he

25:17was essentially encouraging his

25:18supporters to vote in person on election

25:21day. By contrast, the Democrats were

25:23encouraging their supporters to vote via

25:24mail to minimize how many people were

25:27exposed to CO. As you can probably

25:28guess, these two contradictory messages

25:30from the major parties had some rather

25:32predictable consequences. One poll

25:34released in late August showed that

25:35whilst only 20% of Trump supporters

25:37planned on voting via mail, almost 60%

25:40of Biden supporters did, aka three times

25:42as many. And that's a massive disparity.

25:45So with those numbers in mind, that

25:47could lead to a situation in

25:48Pennsylvania where Trump jumps out to a

25:50massive initial lead on election night

25:52as his in-person votes are counted

25:53first. But as the night progresses and

25:56the Biden dominated mail and ballots

25:57accounted, you could see things start to

25:59shift the opposite way. This is a

26:01phenomenon which election experts call

26:03the red mirage or blue shift and they

26:05were trying to warn people about this

26:07months in advance. Basically, people

26:09needed to be patient as it was unlikely

26:11that the result would be known on

26:12election night itself. Now, Trump and

26:14his team were fully aware that this

26:16might occur and it's exactly what their

26:18strategy relied upon. Think about it. If

26:20you were some random Trump supporter who

26:22had no idea what the red mirage was or

26:24how the vote counting process actually

26:26worked and you saw the president's lead

26:28evaporate from 700,000 on election night

26:30to 164,000 the next morning, you'd

26:34probably think that looks kind of dodgy.

26:36And on top of that, if the president had

26:38spent the past several months telling

26:39you day in and day out that mail and

26:41ballots were fraudulent, well, you might

26:43actually think that Biden and the

26:45Democrats had stolen the election. This

26:47is the exact result which Trump was

26:49hunting for in the situation that he

26:51lost the election and it's why he was

26:52about to relentlessly target mailin

26:55ballots. On May 24th, Trump would tweet

26:57this. The United States cannot have all

27:00mail in ballots. It will be the greatest

27:01rigged election in history. People grab

27:03them from mailboxes, print thousands of

27:05forgeries, and force people to sign. 2

27:07days later, on May 26th, Trump tweeted,

27:09"There is no way, zero, that mail and

27:12ballots will be anything less than

27:13substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes

27:15will be robbed. Bouts will be forged.

27:17and even illegally printed out and

27:19fraudulently signed. This would actually

27:20be the first ever tweet from Trump which

27:22Twitter flagged for misinformation,

27:23adding a little disclaimer which said,

27:25"Get the facts about mail and ballots."

27:27In response, Trump said this at Twitter

27:30is now interfering in the 2020

27:31presidential election. They are saying,

27:33"My statement on mail and ballots, which

27:35will lead to massive corruption and

27:36fraud, is incorrect based on

27:38fact-checking by fake news CNN and the

27:40Amazon Washington Post." On June 22nd,

27:43with a little more passion, Trump would

27:44tweet, "Rig 2020 election. Millions of

27:46mail and ballots will be printed by

27:48foreign countries and others. It will be

27:50the scandal of our times. Two hours

27:52later, his tirade would continue.

27:53Because of the mail-in ballots, 2020

27:56will be the most rigged election in our

27:57nation's history. Unless this stupidity

27:59has ended. We voted during World War I

28:01and World War II with no problem. But

28:03now they're using co in order to cheat

28:05by using mail-ins. On July 29th, Trump

28:08tweeted again with universal mail-in

28:10voting, not absentee voting, which is

28:12good. 2020 will be the most inaccurate

28:14and fraudulent election in history. It

28:16will be a great embarrassment to the

28:18USA. Delay the election until people can

28:20properly, securely, and safely vote.

28:22Question mark. Question mark. Question

28:23mark. Delaying the election. That was

28:26definitely a new one. He even mentioned

28:27it at a press conference the very next

28:29day.

28:29>> I don't want to delay. I want to have

28:32the election, but I also don't want to

28:33have to wait for 3 months and then find

28:36out that the ballots are all missing and

28:38the election doesn't mean anything.

28:40That's what's going to happen, Steve.

28:41It's common sense that everyone knows

28:44it. Smart people know it. Stupid people

28:47may not know it. And some people don't

28:49want to talk about it, but they know it.

28:52>> Ah, yes. All those stupid election

28:54experts who have no idea what they're

28:56talking about. Now, you might be

28:57wondering, is there any grain of truth

28:59to what Trump is claiming here? Like,

29:01sure, he's definitely lying to some

29:02extent, but is there a possibility for

29:04mailin ballots to be fraudulent? Well,

29:06the answer to that is yeah, actually, as

29:08with literally any form of voting, fraud

29:11is always a possibility. But the real

29:13question to be asking is whether or not

29:14it's significant enough to change

29:16results. And the answer to that was,

29:18god, no. One investigation of American

29:20elections between 2000 and 2012 found

29:22just 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud

29:25out of billions of votes. On August

29:2726th, the Trump appointed elections

29:29commissioner, Ben Havlin, told the media

29:31that there had been quote, "No real

29:32evidence when it came to voter fraud."

29:34And to top it all off, you also had the

29:36FBI telling reporters that there was

29:37quote, "no evidence of any coordinated

29:39fraud schemes related to voting by

29:41mail." I mean, look, the picture was

29:43pretty [ __ ] clear to anyone with a

29:45functioning brain. Yet, Trump pushed on

29:46with his lies anyway. In fact, as the

29:48year progressed, his rhetoric became

29:50increasingly absurd. On July 19th, in an

29:53interview with Fox News, Chris Wallace

29:55asked the president,

29:56>> "Can you give Can you give a direct

29:57answer? You will accept the election?"

29:59>> I have to see. Look, you I have to see.

30:01No, I'm not going to just say yes. I'm

30:03not going to say in order. and I didn't

30:04last time either.

30:05>> For reference, this was the first time a

30:07sitting US president had ever raised

30:09doubts over accepting the result of a

30:11legitimate election. Then on August 24th

30:13at the Republican National Convention in

30:14Charlotte, Trump would tell his

30:16supporters this.

30:17>> And hopefully we have judges that are

30:19going to give it a fair call because if

30:21they give it a fair call, we're going to

30:23win this election. The only way they can

30:25take this election away from us is if

30:29this is a rigged election. We're going

30:30to win this election.

30:32>> [cheering]

30:33>> At a rally in Nevada on September 13th,

30:36Trump told his supporters,

30:37>> "They're going to be sending out 80

30:40million ballots. They're and it's

30:42Democrats. They're going to they're

30:44trying to rig this election."

30:46>> On the 17th of September, Trump tweeted,

30:48"There is a group of people, largely

30:50radical left Democrats, that wants

30:52election mayhem. States must end this

30:54crazy mass sending of ballots. Also, a

30:56gift of foreign interference into our

30:58election. Stop it now before it is too

31:00late." On the 27th of September, at a

31:02press conference, Trump told the media,

31:04>> "In Wisconsin, three trays of mail

31:07containing absentee ballots were found

31:09in a ditch. They were thrown in a

31:10ditch." Three trays, that's a lot.

31:13>> For reference, this claim was

31:14investigated by the Wisconsin Board of

31:15Elections, and it turned out that there

31:17wasn't a single absentee ballot found in

31:20those trays. And look, I could go on and

31:22on here, but we'll leave it at one final

31:24example. On the 29th of September, in

31:26his first debate against Biden, aka the

31:28biggest stage possible, Trump would once

31:30again reiterate these baseless claims

31:31about fraudulent mail-in ballots.

31:33They're sending millions of ballots all

31:35over the country. There's fraud. They

31:37found them in creeks. They found some

31:39with the name Trump. Just happened to

31:41have the name Trump just the other day

31:42in a waste paper basket. They're being

31:45sent all over the place. They sent two

31:47in a Democrat area. They sent out a

31:49thousand ballots. Everybody got two

31:51ballots. This is going to be a fraud

31:53like you've never seen.

31:54>> Now, would you be surprised if I told

31:56you that every single claim he just made

31:58about election fraud was immediately

32:00debunked by fact checkers? They had an

32:01absolute field day in the aftermath of

32:03this debate because Trump could not help

32:05but regurgitate lie after lie after lie.

32:09But unfortunately, it didn't really

32:10matter how wrong he was. Trump's

32:12relentless attack campaign on mail and

32:14ballots had already undermined enough

32:15people's faith in the election process

32:17that there was going to be problems on

32:18November 3rd, no matter what the result

32:20ended up being. And that's exactly what

32:22he wanted all along. And look, you might

32:24think I'm speculating too hard here when

32:26it's impossible for us to know what

32:28Trump's true intentions were. But no,

32:30for anyone capable of rational thought,

32:32doubts like that should have been all

32:33but eradicated on November 1st when

32:35Jonathan Swan from Axios dropped this

32:37bombshell of an article. scoop. Trump's

32:40plan to declare premature victory. To

32:42quote from it directly, President Trump

32:44has told confidants he'll declare

32:45victory on Tuesday night if it looks

32:47like he's ahead, according to three

32:49sources familiar with his private

32:50comments. That's even if the electoral

32:52college outcome still hinges on large

32:54numbers of uncounted votes in key states

32:56like Pennsylvania. I don't think it gets

32:58clearer than that. Now, on top of that

33:00report, there were also leaked comments

33:01coming from Trump's advisers who are

33:03reiterating the exact same point. During

33:05a phone call on October 31st, Steve

33:07Bannon told a group of his Chinese

33:09business associates that

33:10>> and what Trump's going to do is just

33:12declare victory, right? He's going to

33:13declare victory, but that doesn't mean

33:16he's the winner. He's just going to say

33:18he's the winner. The Democrats, more of

33:20our people vote early that count.

33:23There's vote in mail. And so, they're

33:25going to have a natural disadvantage.

33:27And Trump's going to take advantage of

33:29that's our strategy. He's going to

33:30declare himself a winner. So, when you

33:31wake up Wednesday morning, it's going to

33:33be a firestorm. Not going to lie, it's

33:35kind of bizarre listening to somebody

33:36outline the president's step-by-step

33:39plan to defraud the American public in

33:40advance. But there it is, I guess. Also,

33:44on November 1st, you had one of Trump's

33:46outside political strategists, Roger

33:47Stone, who've been found guilty of

33:49obstruction, witness tampering, and

33:50lying to Congress to protect Trump

33:52during the 2016 investigation into

33:54Russian election interference. Tell

33:55members of the Proud Boys, yes, those

33:58Proud Boys,

33:58>> I really do suspect it would still be up

34:00in the air. When that happens, the key

34:02thing to do is to claim victory.

34:04Possession is 9/10 the law. No, we won.

34:07[ __ ] you. Sorry. Over. We won. You're

34:09wrong. [ __ ] you.

34:10>> And finally, again on November 1st,

34:12Trump's campaign strategist, Jason

34:13Miller, directly told the media,

34:15>> if you speak with many smart Democrats,

34:17they believe that President Trump will

34:19be ahead on election night, probably

34:21getting 280 electoral somewhere in that

34:23range, and then they're going to try to

34:24steal it back after the election. We

34:26believe that we will be over 290

34:28electoral votes on election night. So no

34:30matter what they try to do, what kind of

34:32high jinks or lawsuits or whatever kind

34:34of nonsense they try to pull off, we're

34:36still going to have enough electoral

34:38votes to get President Trump re-elected.

34:40>> Look, the writing was on the wall. Trump

34:42and his team knew that the vote would

34:43shift towards Biden as the night

34:44progressed. And they also knew that they

34:46could use this to their advantage. Trump

34:48would declare victory on election night

34:49whilst he was ahead. And before the dust

34:51had any chance of settling, he'd make

34:53the completely false claim that Biden

34:55was trying to steal his victory away

34:57from him. This is the plan they'd been

34:59fermenting for several months, and all

35:01America could do was wait.

35:05November 3rd, election day. To say there

35:08was a lot at stake here would be quite

35:10the understatement. Like, sure, I know

35:12everyone calls every election these days

35:14the most important one of our lifetime,

35:16but this one actually felt like it. More

35:18than 158 million people would go on to

35:21cast their ballot this year, aka the

35:23highest turnout as a percentage of the

35:25population since 1900. And look, going

35:27into this day, it was pretty damn clear

35:30who was supposed to win. Most polls were

35:32predicting Biden to get a comfortable

35:3351% of the vote, and this would put him

35:35eight points ahead of Trump, which is a

35:37ridiculously large margin. Even if every

35:40single undecided voter was actually a

35:42covert Republican, it still wouldn't be

35:44enough for him to win. And sure, we'd

35:46all seen how Trump was able to defy the

35:47odds in 2016, but a repeat of that felt

35:50very unlikely, especially in the context

35:52of 2020. At this point in the pandemic,

35:54there had been 9.3 million cases of

35:57COVID and more than 230,000 deaths. And

35:59a lot of voters thought that the blood

36:01was on Trump's hands. Obviously, it

36:03would be a mistake to count him out

36:05entirely, but the Biden camp was quietly

36:07confident about their chances. But okay,

36:09that brings us to the election itself.

36:11For Biden to become president, he needed

36:13to win back the states which Trump had

36:14unexpectedly taken in 2016, such as

36:17Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

36:19Those margins had been razor thin

36:21against Hillary, less than 10,000 votes

36:23in some cases. And this time around, the

36:25polling looked really good for Biden. In

36:27Pennsylvania, he led by five points. In

36:28Wisconsin, it was about eight points.

36:30And in Michigan, it was over seven

36:32points. If Biden was able to flip these

36:34three states, which most pollsters were

36:35expecting he would. And if he could hold

36:37on to everything else that Hillary won

36:38in 2016, he'd only need 12 more

36:40electoral votes to win the presidency.

36:43So, that begs the question, what other

36:45states was Biden hoping to pick up?

36:47Well, there was real talk that he could

36:48flip Arizona, North Carolina, and maybe

36:50even Florida, where recent polls had

36:52shown that Trump was trailing by 3.3

36:54points. As the third most valuable state

36:56in the whole country, being worth 29

36:58electoral votes, a win there would orbit

37:00guarantee a landslide Biden victory.

37:03However, as the polls closed and the

37:04votes started pouring in, things weren't

37:06looking as good as expected. Whilst

37:08Biden found himself with an initial lead

37:09in Florida, Trump would go on to

37:11dominate as the night progressed, not

37:13only winning the state, but doubling his

37:15margin of victory compared to 2016.

37:17There's also a similar story in North

37:19Carolina where Biden's 1 and 1/2 point

37:21lead in the polls had turned into a 1

37:22and a half point deficit as Trump took

37:25another convincing lead. And then

37:27perhaps most waringly of all, polls had

37:29shown that Biden only trailed by half a

37:31percentage point in Ohio. Yet, at 11

37:33p.m., Trump was leading by eight points

37:36with most of the votes already counted.

37:38For reference, that means the polls were

37:40off by a factor of 16. These were

37:42definitely not the results which Biden

37:44and his team had been anticipating,

37:45which was a real cause for concern. As

37:48election night ticked on and these Trump

37:49margins continued to solidify, one

37:51question began sprouting up in a lot of

37:53people's minds. Was 2016 seriously about

37:56to happen again? had the pollsters

37:57completely [ __ ] it for the second time

37:59in a row, especially on the left-leaning

38:01networks like MSNBC and CNN, you could

38:04feel the growing uneasiness. Now, sure,

38:06there hadn't been anything definitive

38:08yet, as there were still tens of

38:09millions of votes which needed to be

38:10counted. But regardless of that, these

38:12were simply not the commanding margins

38:15which Democrats had been hoping for

38:16going into election night. In fact, if

38:19things continued to chug along like they

38:20had been, there was a world where Trump

38:22wouldn't need his backup plan for a

38:24second time.

38:26But then just before 11:30 p.m. on Fox

38:29News, something incredibly strange

38:31happened.

38:32>> I don't want to start ticking these off

38:33yet, guys. I think it's too early. I

38:34haven't made a lot of calls in some of

38:36the states, so I'll refrain from that

38:38for now. But what is this happening

38:40here? Why is Arizona blue? Did we make a

38:44call in Arizona?

38:46>> Well, let's see.

38:49>> There's a check mark. Did our decision

38:51desk make it? Arizona. 11 electoral

38:54votes. Yes, we can.

38:56>> Okay, if that's the case, then guys, uh

38:58when we come back, we'll fill this in.

39:00If you lose Arizona, where do you win?

39:03Now,

39:03>> look, I just got to say it. This moment

39:05was an absolute cinematic masterpiece

39:08from beginning to end. Between Bill

39:10Heammer asking, "Why is Arizona blue?"

39:12like he's quoting that one meme from

39:14Breaking Bad. Why are you blue? Oh jeez.

39:17to the fact Arizona changes literally as

39:19he swaps screens to Brett Bayer looking

39:21utterly dumbfounded when it cuts to his

39:23reaction from the desk. Truly an alltime

39:26moment in election coverage history. But

39:28if I'm being honest, these reactions

39:30were entirely warranted. Arizona was a

39:32state that Trump could not afford to

39:34lose if he wanted to be reelected. And

39:36here was Fox News calling it for Biden

39:38before literally anybody else in the

39:40media. For reference, it wouldn't be

39:42until November 12th, aka 9 days after

39:45the election, that the other major

39:47networks would also call Arizona for

39:49Biden. So, this was a very dramatic

39:51decision. As you can probably imagine,

39:53Trump did not take this news

39:54particularly well from his election

39:56party in the White House and to quote

39:58directly from betrayal by Jonathan Carl.

40:00Kushner called Trump upstairs in the

40:02residence to give him the bad news. And

40:03the core group went off to talk to a now

40:05infuriated president. Trump felt

40:07betrayed. What the hell was Fox doing?

40:09Trump didn't really see the network as a

40:10news organization. He expected it to

40:12support him because most of its viewers

40:14supported him. "Jared, call Robert,"

40:16Trump told his son-in-law, referring to

40:18the 89year-old Robert Murdoch, who owned

40:20Fox News. "And get hope to call

40:21Lachlan," Trump told Kushner, referring

40:23to Hope Hicks, who had worked for Rbert

40:25Murdoch's son, Lachlan, and knew him

40:26well. "They've got to change this,"

40:28Trump shouted. It is incredibly

40:30revealing that Trump's first instinct in

40:32this situation was to call the guy who

40:34owns the network because he didn't like

40:36the decision their political analysts

40:38and math nerds came to after crunching

40:40the numbers. But anyway, despite the

40:42pressure coming from the president and

40:43his closest advisers who were quickly

40:45calling every executive at Fox they

40:46could get through to, this ultimately

40:48turned out to be the correct call. Biden

40:50would go on to win the state of Arizona

40:52by 0.4 percentage points or just over

40:5410,000 votes. This was a major turning

40:57point in the night which ejected a lot

40:59of optimism back into the Biden camp.

41:01Now, just to be clear, none of the

41:03networks were close to calling who had

41:05won the election at this point, but it

41:06was still a really positive sign. But

41:08anyway, 1 hour after Fox made this call,

41:10Biden would get on stage at 12:41 a.m.

41:13to deliver a very important speech.

41:15>> I'm here to tell you tonight, we believe

41:18we're on track to win this election.

41:20Yes, [cheering]

41:25>> we knew because of the unprecedented

41:27early vote and the mailin vote that it's

41:30going to take a while. We're going to

41:32have to be patient until we uh the hard

41:35work of tallying the votes is finished.

41:38And it ain't over till every vote is

41:40counted, every ballot is counted. But

41:42we're feeling good. We're feeling good

41:44about where we are.

41:46>> This was the responsible thing to do.

41:47Biden hadn't outright declared victory

41:49as that would have been a lie with the

41:51amount of votes left to be counted, but

41:52he did signal a healthy amount of

41:54optimism over the way things look to be

41:56going. This is good and it's what you'd

41:58expect a presidential candidate to do.

42:00Look, you know, we could know the

42:02results as early as tomorrow morning,

42:05but it may take a little longer. As I've

42:07said all along, it's not my place or

42:10Donald Trump's place to declare who's

42:12won this election. That's the decision

42:14of the American people. But I'm

42:16optimistic about this outcome.

42:19>> Again, Biden was doing the responsible

42:21thing here, tempering people's

42:22expectations because there could still

42:24be days of counting ahead. Although this

42:26was a very short speech that only lasted

42:27a few minutes, the message from Biden

42:30was crystal clear. Nobody has won this

42:32election yet, but we are feeling pretty

42:34confident about our prospects.

42:36Unfortunately, this absolutely

42:38infuriated Donald Trump. At 12:44 a.m.,

42:41before Biden had even finished speaking,

42:43Trump began lashing out on Twitter. We

42:46are up big, but they are trying to steal

42:48the election. We will never let them do

42:50it. Votes cannot be cast after the polls

42:52are closed. Then less than one minute

42:54after that, he added, I will be making a

42:56statement tonight a big win. Huh, that

42:59kind of sounds like the president is

43:01going to declare victory. Despite the

43:03fact that no outlet had called the

43:05election, and none of them would until 4

43:07days later on November 7th, Trump had

43:09apparently won big. Damn, if only we had

43:12several months of evidence pointing to

43:14the fact that he was always going to

43:16prematurely announce victory. And look,

43:18whilst those tweets were certainly bad,

43:20they wouldn't compare to what happened 2

43:22hours later. From behind his lect turn

43:24in the East Room with a wave of American

43:26flags to his back, Trump would deliver

43:28one of the most dangerous speeches a US

43:30president ever has. And all of a sudden,

43:32everything just stopped.

43:35This is a fraud on the American public.

43:39This is an embarrassment to our country.

43:43>> We were getting ready to win this

43:45election. Frankly, we did win this

43:48election. We [cheering] did win this

43:49election.

43:51We want all voting to stop. We don't

43:55want them to find any ballots at 4:00 in

43:59the morning and add them to the list.

44:01Okay?

44:02It's it's a very sad [applause]

44:05It's a very sad moment to me. This is a

44:07very sad moment and we will win this and

44:11we as far as I'm concerned we already

44:13have won it.

44:14>> So I just want to thank you.

44:16>> Well, that was a slight change of pace

44:18from what Biden had said hours earlier,

44:20wasn't it? On the MSNBC broadcast of

44:22Trump's speech, they literally had to

44:24cut him off so Brian Williams could say

44:26this.

44:26>> We are

44:28reluctant to step in but duty bound to

44:30point out when he says we did win this

44:32election. We've already won. uh that is

44:35not based in the facts at all. U again

44:39uh there are millions of votes yet to be

44:42counted. Our presidents don't select our

44:46victors. And I mean yeah they were

44:48completely within their right to do

44:49that. Nobody had won the election yet

44:51and Trump himself knew that. His

44:53campaign manager William Steppian

44:55advised him that the results would not

44:56be known for some time and that he could

44:58not truthfully declare victory. In fact,

45:00every single one of Trump's advisers and

45:02closest associates who were at the White

45:04House election party agreed with that

45:06sentiment except for one Rudy Giuliani

45:08who was quote definitely intoxicated.

45:11Giuliani announced to nobody in

45:13particular. It was time for the

45:14president to give a speech saying he had

45:16won the election. He should go out there

45:17and declare victory, Giuliani said to

45:19the group. If he doesn't, they will

45:21steal it from us. Nobody in the room

45:22took Giuliani's slurred words seriously,

45:25but he had been telling the president

45:26the same thing. Anyway, after Trump's

45:28rambling subsided, Mike Pence took the

45:30stage and said this.

45:32>> While the votes continue to be counted,

45:34we're going to remain vigilant, as the

45:36president said. I truly do believe, as

45:38you do, [music] that we are on the road

45:41to victory, and we will make America

45:43great again. Again, you can just tell

45:46how careful he was trying to be with his

45:48language there. It was the road to

45:49victory, not victory itself. because

45:52Mike Pence lived in reality where the

45:54outcome of the election had not yet been

45:56determined. But anyway, there was only

45:58so much damage control Pence could do as

46:00the election denial narrative, which

46:01Trump had been preparing for so long,

46:03was now officially rolling. And look,

46:05you only needed to take one glance at

46:07the election map to understand why Trump

46:09wanted the votes to stop. In

46:11Pennsylvania, he was ahead by 700,000

46:14with just 30% of the vote left to be

46:16counted. If you knew nothing about the

46:18election, you'd assume that to be an

46:20inevitable Trump victory. But as we've

46:22explained in detail, this was the red

46:24mirage in full swing. Almost all of the

46:26remaining votes to be counted in

46:27Pennsylvania were sent via mail, and we

46:29knew that Biden had won 78% of the

46:32500,000 mail in ballots, which had

46:34already been counted. If that trend

46:36continued for the remaining 2.2 million

46:38votes, Biden would win Pennsylvania, and

46:40that is why he wanted all voting to

46:42stop. Look, no matter what happened,

46:44Americans were in for a very long week.

46:47Trump had finally put his plan to steal

46:48the election into motion, an outcome

46:50which a lot of people were unfortunately

46:52expecting. And that left one question as

46:55Americans went to bed. How far was

46:57Donald J. Trump willing to take this?

47:02The following morning, as vault counters

47:03were fulfilling their legal duty under

47:05immense social pressure, the president

47:06of the United States was losing his mind

47:09on Twitter. At 10:04 a.m., Trump would

47:11tweet this. Last night I was leading

47:14often solidly in many key states. In

47:16almost all instances, Democrat run and

47:18controlled. Then one by one they started

47:21to magically disappear as surprise

47:23ballot dumps were counted. Very strange.

47:26And the pollsters got it completely and

47:28historically wrong. Then 13 minutes

47:30later at 10:17 a.m. How come every time

47:32they count mail in ballot dumps, they

47:34are so devastating in their percentage

47:36and power of destruction? Just under 2

47:38hours after that, they are finding Biden

47:40votes all over the place. in

47:41Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

47:43So bad for our country. And then at 4:56

47:46p.m., in what has to be one of my

47:48favorite Trump tweets from this entire

47:50saga, we have claimed for electoral vote

47:52purposes the Commonwealth of

47:54Pennsylvania, which won't allow legal

47:55observers, the state of Georgia, and the

47:57state of North Carolina, each one of

47:59which has a big Trump lead.

48:01Additionally, we hereby claim the state

48:03of Michigan, if in fact there was a

48:05large number of secretly dumped ballots,

48:07as has been widely reported. Sorry,

48:10what? You don't just get to call dibs on

48:12the states that you want to win because

48:14funnily enough that isn't how elections

48:16work in a democracy. But look, this

48:18response from Trump was hardly

48:19surprising. As states began to process

48:21more and more of the Biden dominated

48:23mail and ballots, the red mirage was

48:25finally starting to dissipate. In fact,

48:27just after 2 p.m., the Associated Press

48:29would call Wisconsin for Biden. And 4

48:31hours after that, they would also call

48:33Michigan for him, too. These crucial

48:35victories put him at 264 electoral

48:37votes, which was just six shy of the

48:40presidency. Obviously, this was not the

48:42news that Donald Trump wanted to be

48:43hearing. So, the following morning on

48:45November 5th, he would once again take

48:47to Twitter. Stop the count. Now,

48:50admittedly, this was a rather strange

48:52instruction. For one, it was totally

48:54illegal and the president had zero

48:55authority to stop the votes from being

48:57counted. And two, he was kind of

48:58shooting himself in the foot. I mean,

49:00sure, in Pennsylvania, where that

49:02700,000 vote lead on election night had

49:04dwindled to just 100,000, he would win

49:06if counting stopped. However, in

49:08Arizona, a state where Biden still held

49:10a significant lead because they counted

49:12mail and ballots first, well, Trump

49:14would all but guarantee himself a loss.

49:16This resulted in the absurd situation

49:18where you had protesters in states like

49:20Pennsylvania and Michigan, where Trump

49:22was ahead, chanting, "Stop the count at

49:24election facilities,

49:25>> STOP THE COUNT, STOP THE COUNT." And

49:28then in Arizona, a state where Trump was

49:30behind, you had protesters chanting,

49:32"Count the vote at election facilities."

49:34>> Count those votes. Count the vote.

49:37>> Do you know how stupid that is? And

49:39worst of all, it didn't matter that this

49:41was a blatant logical inconsistency

49:43because Trump's base still ate it up.

49:45They had been dripfed this completely

49:47fabricated narrative of election fraud

49:49for over half a year by their leader.

49:51And we were now seeing the consequences

49:52of it in real time.

49:54>> THE MIND STEAL THE ELECTION. THE MEDIA

49:57IS COVERING UP. THE BIDEN CRIME FAMILY

49:59STEAL THIS ELECTION. THE MEDIA'S

50:01COVERING UP. THE BIDEN CRIME FAMILY

50:03STEAL THIS ELECTION. The media IS

50:05COVERING UP. WE WANT OUR FREEDOM FOR THE

50:07WORLD. GIVE US OUR FREEDOM, JOE BIDEN.

50:10JOE BIDEN IS COVERING UP THIS ELECTION.

50:12HE'S STEALING IT.

50:17>> But look, as farfetched as his claims of

50:18a stolen election were, Trump was still

50:20well within his right to pursue whatever

50:22legal challenges he wanted to. You know,

50:24if there really had been illegal votes

50:26dumped in the middle of the night and

50:27election interference from the

50:28Democrats, he just had to go out there

50:30and prove it. Conduct the necessary

50:32investigations, gather the evidence,

50:34request recounts, and let the judicial

50:36system do its thing. If the courts

50:38proved him right on this, his prize

50:40would be another four years in the Oval

50:42Office, aka pure vindication. And look,

50:45that's exactly what he went and did.

50:47Trump's campaign team started pushing

50:48for recounts in states like Georgia and

50:50Wisconsin. They filed dozens of lawsuits

50:52all across the country and pursued every

50:54legal avenue they possibly could. I'm

50:56not going to lie, they were mounting a

50:58serious challenge to the integrity of

50:59the election. But there was one small

51:02issue. It was complete [ __ ] In a

51:05two-month stretch between November 4th,

51:062020 and January 6th, 2021, the Trump

51:09campaign would file 62 separate lawsuits

51:12seeking to overturn the election. And

51:14out of those, only one would result in a

51:16victory for the president. One.

51:18Additionally, that single win they got

51:20in a Pennsylvania court only affected a

51:22tiny fraction of votes and didn't

51:24disqualify anywhere near enough to

51:26change the final outcome. A 1.6% success

51:29rate on your lawsuits is embarrassing

51:30enough. When you actually go case by

51:32case and read what the judges were

51:34saying, it quickly gets even more

51:36embarrassing. Just look at this. In

51:38Arizona, for example, the plaintiffs in

51:40Boa v. Ducy alleged that the election

51:42was tainted by the introduction of

51:43hundreds of thousands of illegal,

51:45ineligible, duplicate, or purely

51:47fictitious ballots. A federal judge

51:49dismissed their suit, finding it void of

51:51plausible allegations and sorely wanting

51:53of relevant or reliable evidence. In

51:55Georgia, a state court dismissed Boland

51:57v. Raffensburgger, which alleged that

51:59tens of thousands of illegal ballots

52:00were cast by outofstate voters or with

52:02invalid signature matches. The judge

52:04found that the complaint's factual

52:05allegations rest on speculation rather

52:07than duly pled facts and do not support

52:09a conclusion that sufficient illegal

52:11votes were cast to change or place in

52:14doubt the result of the election. In

52:15Michigan, a federal judge found in King

52:17V. Whitmer that the plaintiff's claims

52:19of massive election fraud were based on

52:21nothing but speculation and conjecture

52:24that votes for President Trump were

52:25destroyed, discarded, or switched to

52:27votes for Vice President Biden. And in

52:30Constantino v city of Detroit, the

52:31plaintiff's allegations of widespread

52:33vote counting fraud were ruled by a

52:35judge to be speculative, filled with

52:37guesswork, and often unsubstantiated.

52:39And this decision was upheld by the

52:40Michigan Court of Appeals and the

52:42Michigan Supreme Court, too. And look,

52:44for those of you who think this is just

52:45a corrupt justice system at work, 22 of

52:48these cases had judges which were

52:49appointed by Republican presidents. 10

52:51of the cases had judges appointed by

52:52Trump himself. And of the cases which

52:54almost reached the Supreme Court, all

52:56three of the judges appointed by Trump

52:58rejected the claims of fraud. It really

53:01doesn't get any more damning than that.

53:03Ultimately, all of the legal avenues

53:04pursued by the Trump campaign would

53:06prove to be dead ends. No lawsuit would

53:08discover thousands of illegally dumped

53:10votes, and all of the subsequent

53:12recounts would only bolster Biden's lead

53:14in the states that they occurred. Simply

53:16put, there hadn't been any systematic

53:18fraud in the 2020 election. And so that

53:21brings us to November 7th, where just

53:23before midday, the Associated Press

53:25would finally make the call which

53:27everyone had been waiting for. We can

53:30now project the winner of the

53:32presidential race.

53:36CNN projects Joseph R. Biden Jr. is

53:40elected the 46th president of the United

53:43States, winning the White House and

53:45denying President Trump a second term.

53:47>> Biden had actually done it. He beat

53:50Donald Trump. Sure, it wasn't in the

53:52dominant fashion which the polls were

53:53predicting and Democrats were hoping

53:55for, but it was a win nonetheless.

53:57Election analysts could finally make

53:59this call after Biden won the state of

54:01Pennsylvania. At that 700,000 vote lead,

54:03which Trump held on election night,

54:05ultimately turned into an 80,000 vote

54:07deficit once all the mail and ballots

54:09were counted. Biden would release a

54:10celebratory video. Camala Harris would

54:12make an infamous phone call, and a new

54:14chapter was ready to start in the United

54:16States of America.

54:20Just before the Associated Press would

54:21call the election for Biden, it turned

54:23out that something was brewing in the

54:25Trump camp. At 9:35 a.m., the president

54:27would issue this announcement. Lawyers

54:29press conference at Four Seasons

54:30Philadelphia, 11:00 a.m. Interesting.

54:33The Trump team had an important update

54:34to give on the election from a very

54:36luxurious venue. I mean, hell, just look

54:38at what the Four Seasons website has to

54:40say about their Philly conference rooms.

54:42From the boardroom to the ballroom, our

54:43function rooms are modern, elegant, and

54:46flexible. Book the entire fifth floor

54:47for a highle conference. Host a private

54:49dinner for colleagues at Vernick Fish.

54:51Or invite clients for a power breakfast

54:52above the clouds on the 59th floor. Wow,

54:56talk about extravagant. I wonder which

54:58room the Trump team were going to book.

54:59Would they prefer the beautiful skyline

55:01views for this announcement or the

55:02functionality of the bigger room

55:04downstairs? Whatever though, I guess it

55:06isn't the most pressing matter given all

55:07the supposed election fraud they have to

55:09talk about. And I'm sure whatever room

55:10they picked would be nice either way.

55:13However, 10 minutes later, Trump would

55:15delete his first tweet and issue a

55:18slight addendum. Big press conference

55:19today in Philadelphia at Four Seasons

55:22Total Landscaping.

55:2411:30 a.m. Sorry, what? Give me a sec.

55:27Four seasons total landscaping.

55:32Okay, we'll drag and drop.

55:35We'll turn and Oh my god. No way. Did

55:41the Trump team seriously book the wrong

55:43four seasons? Instead of some luxurious

55:45hotel room, were they about to host one

55:46of the most important press conferences

55:48of this campaign in some dingy back

55:50alleyway in an industrial precinct which

55:53was more than 8 mi away from the

55:54Philadelphia CBD? Well, the answer to

55:57that question was yes. They were going

55:59to give this update at a venue crammed

56:01between a crerematorium and a sex shop.

56:04What a completely disastrous blunder for

56:06a completely disastrous campaign team.

56:08Because there was no time to book a new

56:09venue and reschedule the press

56:11conference, the Trump team simply had to

56:13make do. They desperately taped a series

56:14of campaign signs to the garage door to

56:16make things somewhat presentable. But I

56:19mean, come on, the idea of polishing a

56:21turd comes to mind here. On top of that,

56:23it really seemed like the universe

56:24wanted to make the Trump team look as

56:26stupid as possible because 10 minutes

56:28before Rudy Giuliani would begin

56:30speaking here, Fox News officially

56:32called the election for Biden. Under

56:33ordinary circumstances, that would be

56:35game over for a political campaign. But

56:38unfortunately, these were far from

56:40ordinary circumstances. So, at 11:30

56:42a.m. in some random parking lot, Rudy

56:45Giuliani would begin his conspiracy

56:47theory tirade on how the election was

56:50stolen. Instead of going to a high

56:51degree of care to allow inspections of

56:54the mailin ballots, there was no

56:56inspection of a single mail-in ballot.

56:58Those mail-in ballots could have been

57:00for

57:01anybody they wrote in. Those mail and

57:03ballots could have been written the day

57:05before by the Democratic party hacks

57:08that were all over the convention

57:09center. I know this city has a sad

57:11history of voter fraud. After all, Joe

57:15Frasier is still voting here. Kind of

57:17hard since he died 5 years ago. Also,

57:19Will Smith's father has voted here twice

57:22since he died. I don't know how he votes

57:24cuz he's voted secret. This is

57:26outrageous.

57:27an enormously important contest with a

57:30very very suspect method of voting.

57:33There was no security, zero. The people

57:36of this city, people of this country

57:38have no assurance at all that those

57:41ballots were actually cast. That would

57:44have to have been almost unanimously

57:45cast for Joe Biden in order to catch up.

57:47And there can be only one conclusion as

57:49to why you would make it so impossible

57:52because many, many of them were

57:53fraudulent. And you don't you just don't

57:57lose leads like that without corruption.

58:02And you're in a city in which voter

58:04fraud is professional. What was it

58:07called by?

58:08All the Oh my goodness. All the

58:11networks. Wow.

58:15All the networks.

58:17We have to forget about the law. Judges

58:20don't count.

58:23All the networks. All the networks,

58:26all the networks thought Biden was going

58:28to win by 10%. Gee, what happened?

58:31>> Huh. A rather interesting press

58:32conference. Now, you're probably

58:34wondering, were any of Giuliani's claims

58:36here true? No, of course not. Joe

58:38Frasier had not voted in any election

58:41after his death. That was an outright

58:42lie. In the case of Will Smith's father,

58:44he did actually vote after dying in

58:462016. But there's a very clear

58:48explanation to this. He mailed in his

58:50absentee ballot as was totally legal for

58:52him to do, but ended up passing away one

58:55day before the 2016 election occurred.

58:57Now, if you take a look at the election

58:58code from that year, a ballot like this

59:00is still considered to be legitimate.

59:02So, it's entirely legal for it to be

59:04counted. I can partially understand if

59:06you have a problem with that rule

59:08because it's a bit of a strange gray

59:09area where you were obviously alive when

59:11you casted your vote, but you're dead

59:12once it's been counted. But regardless

59:14of that, this is clearly a very niche

59:16technical issue, not some shadowy case

59:18of fraud like Giuliani was presenting it

59:20to be. Next, Giuliani also claimed that

59:23ballots weren't properly inspected in

59:24Pennsylvania. Was that true? Nope. Their

59:27Supreme Court rejected this case in a

59:285-2 decision as they found the

59:30observation process to be entirely

59:32legal. And finally, when it came to

59:34those fraudulent mail and ballots,

59:36Giuliani had not produced a modicum of

59:38evidence to support his claims. Simply

59:41put, these allegations were completely

59:43nonsensical, just like everything else

59:45to do with this [ __ ] insane press

59:47conference. After it wrapped up,

59:48Giuliani was rather unsurprisingly torn

59:51to shreds by the media. He became a

59:53complete national laughingstock for the

59:54venue mixup. And after such an

59:56embarrassment, you'd probably expect him

59:58to be relegated or dropped from the

59:59Trump team entirely. But you'd be dead

1:00:02wrong. In fact, once the networks had

1:00:03officially called the election for

1:00:05Biden, Giuliani would actually ascend to

1:00:07a new level of power within the Trump

1:00:09aristocracy. By November 14th, he was no

1:00:12longer just the president's personal

1:00:13attorney. He was now the head of his

1:00:15entire campaign legal team. And look,

1:00:18just to be very clear, this is where the

1:00:20story really starts to go off the deep

1:00:22end. As Trump would lose lawsuit after

1:00:23lawsuit, and the prospect of overturning

1:00:25the election in a legal manner became

1:00:27increasingly unlikely, the president

1:00:29would start to depend on a new group of

1:00:31people in the [music] White House. They

1:00:32weren't very experienced, their

1:00:34credentials were flimsy at best, and

1:00:35their theories were absolutely

1:00:37outlandish, but they told Donald Trump

1:00:39everything he wanted to hear. So, with

1:00:41that being said, I think it's time we

1:00:43meet team crazy. For a little bit of

1:00:45context here, Trump's inner circle was

1:00:47initially filled with semi-reasonable

1:00:50people. This included the likes of Bill

1:00:51Steppian, his campaign manager, Mark

1:00:53Meadows, the White House chief of staff,

1:00:55Bill Bar, the attorney general, and even

1:00:57family members like Ivanka Trump and

1:00:59Jared Kushner. Now, don't get me wrong,

1:01:02these people are all far from perfect,

1:01:04and each deserve a lot of criticism in

1:01:05their own right. However, at the very

1:01:07least, they mostly operated in reality,

1:01:10you know, and none of these people got

1:01:11up whilst intoxicated to tell the

1:01:13president that he should falsely declare

1:01:15victory on election night when the

1:01:16result was still unknown. I know that

1:01:18isn't a high bar to clear, but for

1:01:20Trump's inner circle, it actually kind

1:01:22of is. Now, because this group at least

1:01:24partially existed in reality, and they

1:01:26weren't seeing any actual evidence

1:01:27surface to support Trump's claims of

1:01:29election fraud, they in turn grew

1:01:31doubtful that there was any. This is

1:01:33something that reasonable people do.

1:01:34They see a claim, they weigh it up

1:01:36against the evidence, and when it turns

1:01:37out that there is no evidence, they call

1:01:39[ __ ] Unfortunately though,

1:01:41exercising your capacity for reason

1:01:43wasn't a very pragmatic thing to be

1:01:45doing if you were trapped in the depths

1:01:46of Trump's inner circle. He was

1:01:48absolutely determined to overturn the

1:01:50result of the election by any means

1:01:52necessary. And he needed a group of

1:01:54people who would join him in that

1:01:55effort. Therefore, as the days and weeks

1:01:57would go on, the president would come to

1:01:59rely on a new group of advisers, aka the

1:02:02affforementioned team crazy. This was a

1:02:04band of Trump fanatics who were entirely

1:02:06convinced that the election had been

1:02:08stolen from him and were searching far

1:02:09and wide to prove that fact. This

1:02:11operation was led by Rudy Giuliani, who

1:02:13we just met, and he recruited a team of

1:02:15lawyers and investigators to help him on

1:02:17this crusade. This included people like

1:02:19Sydney Pal, someone we will become

1:02:21intimately familiar with very shortly,

1:02:23Jenna Ellis, Michael Flynn, and John

1:02:25Eastman. To be clear, this was a deeply

1:02:27conspiratorial collection of individuals

1:02:29who Trump insiders would later refer to

1:02:31as a kitchen cabinet of idiots or simply

1:02:34the clown car. Now, you might be

1:02:35wondering, how did this group garner

1:02:37such lovely nicknames? Well, to answer

1:02:39that, let's take a look at what Sydney

1:02:40Pal had to say during an interview with

1:02:42Fox News on November 8th. There has been

1:02:44a massive and coordinated effort to

1:02:46steal this election from we the people

1:02:49of the United States of America to

1:02:51delegitimize and destroy votes for

1:02:54Donald Trump to manufacture votes for

1:02:57Joe Biden. They have done it in every

1:02:59way imaginable from having dead people

1:03:01vote in massive numbers to absolutely

1:03:05fraudulently comp uh creating ballots

1:03:08that exist only voting for Biden. They

1:03:11also used an algorithm to calculate the

1:03:14votes they would need to flip. We have

1:03:16got to fight tooth and nail in federal

1:03:18court to expose this abject fraud and

1:03:21the conspiracy behind it and get a

1:03:24recount and audits in every place it's

1:03:26needed, which is frankly most of the

1:03:28country. They had this all planned,

1:03:30Maria. They had the algorithms. They had

1:03:32the paper ballots waiting to be inserted

1:03:34if and when needed. [music] And notably,

1:03:36President Trump's vote in the blue

1:03:38states went up enormously. That's when

1:03:40they had to stop the vote count and go

1:03:43in and replace votes for Biden and take

1:03:46away Trump votes. And when the votes are

1:03:48really audited and the real votes are

1:03:51counted, Trump will win. He is the

1:03:53president and he is in charge of this

1:03:55country.

1:03:58>> Yeah, this is what we're going to be

1:04:00dealing with. Also, shout out to Fox

1:04:01News for platforming this nutter. I'm

1:04:03sure that won't come back to bite them

1:04:05whatsoever. Anyway, from this point

1:04:06forward, Sydney Pal and the rest of Team

1:04:08Crazy would start to pedal a lot of

1:04:10conspiratorial [ __ ] to the American

1:04:12people. In fact, there are so many

1:04:14theories that it would be impossible to

1:04:16cover them all. But if I had to boil it

1:04:18down to the three most important ones,

1:04:20there'd be one, the ineligible voters,

1:04:22two, Dominion voting machines, and

1:04:24three, the suitcases of ballots in

1:04:26Georgia. So, why don't we take a look at

1:04:28them in more detail? First up, the

1:04:30ineligible voters. This is a pretty

1:04:32broad category which refers to a whole

1:04:34range of conspiracy theories [music]

1:04:36including dead voters, underage voters,

1:04:38ballot dumps in the middle of the night,

1:04:39and everything like that. We've already

1:04:41heard from Giuliani how Joe Frasier and

1:04:43Will Smith's father were apparently able

1:04:45to vote whilst not being alive. But that

1:04:47was just the tip of the iceberg. To get

1:04:49a better idea, why don't we listen to

1:04:51some very wise words from the president

1:04:53in an interview he gave with Fox.

1:04:55>> And what happened? If you watched the

1:04:57election, I was called by the biggest

1:04:59people saying, "Congratulations,

1:05:01political people. Congratulations, sir.

1:05:03You just won the election. It was 10:00

1:05:06and you looked at the numbers." And I'm

1:05:07sure you felt that way. This election

1:05:09was over. And then they did dumps. They

1:05:12call them dumps. Big massive dumps uh in

1:05:16Michigan, in Pennsylvania, and uh uh all

1:05:19over.

1:05:20>> That's right. There were big massive

1:05:22dumps happening all across the country.

1:05:24One of the most prominent examples of

1:05:25this, which conspiracy theorists still

1:05:27love to site, by the way, supposedly

1:05:29occurred at a counting station in the

1:05:31TCF Center in Detroit. In the early

1:05:33hours of the morning after election

1:05:34night, footage can be seen of a white

1:05:36van entering the TCF Center's loading

1:05:38bay, parking, then dropping off several

1:05:41boxes of ballots, which are then brought

1:05:43inside. Then later that morning, a GOP

1:05:45consultant posted this screenshot to

1:05:47Twitter, which showed that Biden had

1:05:49gained 140,000 votes in Michigan, i.e.

1:05:52the state which Detroit and the TCF

1:05:54center is in at the same time that Trump

1:05:56had gained well zero. You can see his

1:05:58votes stay at exactly 2.2 million whilst

1:06:01Biden's skyrockets. This tweet from the

1:06:03consultant would then be amplified by

1:06:05the antichrist himself Matt Walsh and

1:06:07the president would also retweet it too

1:06:09saying what is this all about? Then to

1:06:12make matters even worse, there were also

1:06:14some election peculiarities going on at

1:06:16the same time in neighboring Wisconsin.

1:06:18The polling site 538 posted this graph

1:06:20showing how the count had progressed in

1:06:22the state overnight. And oh, that's a

1:06:24suspiciously vertical jump in votes for

1:06:26Biden, isn't it? Now, if we take all of

1:06:29these separate incidents and mash them

1:06:30together, well, you can probably see why

1:06:32conspiracy theorists were frothing at

1:06:34the mouth because this all looked pretty

1:06:36dodgy. I mean, hell, if we go back to

1:06:38that van footage for a second, just look

1:06:40at how O was explaining the situation to

1:06:43their viewers. van escorted by car in

1:06:45official capacity appears to deliver 60

1:06:48boxes of fake Biden ballots. The

1:06:50situation ended up getting so bad that

1:06:53protests would erupt outside the TCF

1:06:54center in the days after the election.

1:06:57Now, whilst all of this looks pretty

1:06:58suspect on first inspection, the second

1:07:00you decide to go deeper into any of

1:07:02these incidents is the second you

1:07:04discover a reasonable explanation for

1:07:07literally everything. Firstly, let's

1:07:09tackle the footage. As we've mentioned,

1:07:11this so-called ballot dump occurred at

1:07:12the TCF Center in Detroit, which is

1:07:14located in Wayne County, aka the single

1:07:17most populous county in all of Michigan

1:07:19with more than 662 individual voting

1:07:22precincts. To count the massive amounts

1:07:24of votes here, they do things a little

1:07:26differently compared to other counties,

1:07:27as Jonathan Carl explains in his book,

1:07:29Betrayal. In every other county, they

1:07:31count the ballots at the precinct, but

1:07:33in Wayne County, they bring them into

1:07:35one central counting place, aka the TCF

1:07:38center. So, the boxes are coming in all

1:07:39night. The fact that boxes are coming

1:07:41in, well, that's what they do. Nothing

1:07:43unusual or illegal. The ballots are

1:07:45turned in at the precincts by 8:00 p.m.

1:07:46and then transported in boxes to the

1:07:49place where they are counted. So, right

1:07:51off the bat, this wasn't some illegal

1:07:53ballot dump. The van was simply

1:07:55transporting completely legitimate votes

1:07:57from a Wayne County precinct to the TCF

1:07:59center, which is where all the counting

1:08:02happened. So far, so good. Next, those

1:08:05140,000 votes, which all went to Biden,

1:08:07well, it turns out that was just a case

1:08:09of human error as someone inputting data

1:08:11from a particular county, literally just

1:08:14made a typo. And Abby Bowen, elections

1:08:16clerk in Shyawasi County, told us by

1:08:18phone that the error came down to a

1:08:19typo. There was a typo in the initial

1:08:21report that went out to the Bureau of

1:08:22Elections. It was caught in a very short

1:08:24amount of time and quickly corrected.

1:08:26Bowen said there was an extra zero added

1:08:28on the end when Biden's votes were keyed

1:08:30in. the firm responsible for updating

1:08:31the electoral map, Election Desk HQ,

1:08:34were also fully transparent about the

1:08:36mistake, posting this update to Twitter

1:08:38and promptly fixing it. Also, the GOP

1:08:40consultant who initially posted the

1:08:42screenshot, which both Trump and Walsh

1:08:43amplified, did the principal thing once

1:08:46he heard this explanation and deleted

1:08:48his tweet. He was right to point out the

1:08:49discrepancy in the first place and to

1:08:51bring attention to it. But once the

1:08:53truth was revealed, he got rid of it.

1:08:55Now, the final thing to address is that

1:08:57graph in Wisconsin. Again, it does look

1:08:59suspicious, but once you start digging

1:09:01into things, it actually makes a lot of

1:09:03sense. To directly quote an article

1:09:05written by Haley Miller for Politact,

1:09:07Democratic nominee Joe Biden passed

1:09:08Trump in Wisconsin at about 3:30 a.m. on

1:09:11November 4th because the city of

1:09:12Milwaukee reported its 170,000 absentee

1:09:15votes, aka mail-in votes, all at the

1:09:18same time. The votes were reported

1:09:19together because Milwaukee and 38 other

1:09:21communities use a central count

1:09:23location. Other communities counted

1:09:24absentee ballots at the polling places

1:09:26and reported them earlier along with

1:09:28their in-person vote totals. From 3:26

1:09:30to 3:44 a.m. in the Associated Press

1:09:32election reporting stream, the vote for

1:09:34Biden jumped by 149,520.

1:09:37And Trump's vote jumped by 31,83

1:09:41votes. So, if we do the maths, that

1:09:43means 18% of those votes were for Trump

1:09:45and 82% were for Biden, which is a very

1:09:47stark margin, but it should make a lot

1:09:50of sense. For one, those 170,000 votes

1:09:52were all mail and ballots being counted,

1:09:55which as we know slanted very heavily

1:09:57towards Biden. On a national level, just

1:10:00one/3 of mail and ballots went to Trump,

1:10:02whereas 2/3 went to Biden. Now,

1:10:04secondly, almost all of these ballots

1:10:06were coming from Milwaukee, which is a

1:10:08very urban county, and they tend to lean

1:10:10heavily Democratic as well. For example,

1:10:12in the Republican stronghold that is

1:10:14Texas, there are still urban counties

1:10:15like Travis, where Austin is located,

1:10:17that voted 71% for Biden and only 26%

1:10:21for Trump. This is just how things tend

1:10:23to go in major cities. So, sure, this

1:10:25massive leap does look pretty strange,

1:10:27but when you understand it was all

1:10:29coming from the most populous urban

1:10:30county in the entire state that was

1:10:32reporting all of its mail and ballots at

1:10:34the same time, it does become a lot more

1:10:37understandable. As I said initially, all

1:10:39three of these incidents had perfectly

1:10:41reasonable explanations. And look, this

1:10:43is basically how it goes for any of the

1:10:45conspiracy theories involving the

1:10:47so-called ineligible voters. Trump and

1:10:49his team of crazies would make similarly

1:10:51absurd allegations about outofstate

1:10:53voters in Nevada, 70,000 underage voters

1:10:56in Georgia, and 20,000 dead voters in

1:10:58Pennsylvania. They sound shocking upon

1:11:00first inspection, but after doing like

1:11:03two minutes of research, the entire

1:11:05house of cards starts to topple down

1:11:07because, well, they're [ __ ] Now,

1:11:10the second major conspiracy theory being

1:11:12pushed by team crazy centered around the

1:11:14voting machines being used all across

1:11:16the country by a company formerly known

1:11:18as Dominion Voting Systems. This is

1:11:20something Sydney Pal mentioned in her

1:11:21interview with Fox News. But basically,

1:11:24according to her, the software in these

1:11:25machines were flipping votes from Trump

1:11:28to Biden. By November 12th, this theory

1:11:30had already reached the president as he

1:11:32tweeted out a quote from a report that

1:11:33claimed Dominion machines had deleted

1:11:352.7 million Trump votes nationwide. Now,

1:11:39I must admit that this was a very

1:11:41strange claim for the president to be

1:11:43amplified. On that very same day, there

1:11:45had been an internal memo from the Trump

1:11:47campaign which declared that Dominion

1:11:49software did not lead to improper vote

1:11:51counts and concluded that these machines

1:11:53had no effect on the final outcome of

1:11:55the election. Jason Miller, one of

1:11:57Trump's closest advisers, would also

1:11:59testify that he directly told the

1:12:01president about this analysis by

1:12:03November 12th, calling the allegations

1:12:04against Dominion quote not valid. And

1:12:07look, this is a pattern which you will

1:12:08notice with Trump during this stretch of

1:12:10time. No matter how much his inner

1:12:12circle disproved these outlandish

1:12:14theories in private, the president would

1:12:16still relentlessly promote them to the

1:12:18public, almost as if he had no regard

1:12:20for the actual truth. In addition to

1:12:22that memo, the Department of Homeland

1:12:24Security would also release a statement

1:12:26that day claiming that the 2020 election

1:12:28was the most secure one in American

1:12:31history. They also went out of their way

1:12:32to bold a certain line later in the

1:12:34press release which read, "There is no

1:12:36evidence that any voting system deleted

1:12:38or lost votes, changed votes, or was in

1:12:40any way compromised." Now, you would

1:12:43hope that would send a pretty clear

1:12:44message to the president and team crazy

1:12:46to stop making these insane allegations,

1:12:49but no, they'd only double down. On

1:12:51November 17th, Chris Krebs, the cyber

1:12:53chief at the Department of Homeland

1:12:55Security, would issue this innocuous

1:12:57tweet, which simply reaffirmed the

1:12:58consensus amongst election security

1:13:00experts, i.e., there had been no

1:13:02credible evidence of fraud thus far.

1:13:05However, there was one man that would

1:13:07take issue with this tweet. And

1:13:08unfortunately for Krebs, that man

1:13:10happened to be the single most powerful

1:13:12person on the entire planet. Hours

1:13:14later, Trump would tweet this. The

1:13:16recent statement by Chris Krebs on the

1:13:18security of the 2020 election was highly

1:13:20inaccurate in that there were massive

1:13:22improprieties and fraud, including dead

1:13:24people voting, poll watches not allowed

1:13:26into polling locations, glitches in the

1:13:27voting machines, which change votes from

1:13:29Trump to Biden, late voting, and many

1:13:31more. Therefore, effective immediately,

1:13:34Chris Krebs has been terminated as

1:13:36director of the Cyber Security and

1:13:39Infrastructure Security Agency. What a

1:13:41totally normal response from the

1:13:43president of the United States. And

1:13:45actually, speaking of things which are

1:13:47totally normal, let's take a look at

1:13:48something which happened two days later

1:13:50on November 19th. This is when Giuliani

1:13:53and Sydney Pal decide to host a press

1:13:55conference in the nation's capital. And

1:13:57there really isn't any context I can

1:13:59give you to preempt what you're about to

1:14:00hear. So, let's just have a listen. What

1:14:03we are really dealing with here and

1:14:05uncovering more by the day is the

1:14:09massive influence of communist money

1:14:12through Venezuela, Cuba, and likely

1:14:16China and the interference with our

1:14:18elections here in the United States. the

1:14:22Dominion voting systems, the Smartmatic

1:14:25technology software and the software

1:14:28that goes in other computerized voting

1:14:31systems here as well, not just Dominion

1:14:34were created in V in Venezuela at the

1:14:38direction of Hugo Chavez to make sure he

1:14:41never lost an election after one

1:14:43constitutional referendum came out the

1:14:45way he did not want it to come out.

1:14:47>> Yep, that's right. These voting machines

1:14:49were manufactured at the behest of Hugo

1:14:51Chavez, the former socialist president

1:14:53of Venezuela, who had been dead for

1:14:56seven years to undermine the integrity

1:14:58of American elections. Seriously, what

1:15:01the [ __ ] was she talking about? This was

1:15:02bordering on some QAnon Hillary Clinton

1:15:05is drinking the blood of children levels

1:15:07of conspiracy theory. Also, when

1:15:09Dominion later sued both Giuliani and

1:15:11Sydney Pal for defamation with these

1:15:13[ __ ] allegations they were making,

1:15:15her lawyers would make the defense. And

1:15:17I kid you not, that quote, "No

1:15:20reasonable person could have mistaken

1:15:22these claims about Hugo Chavez voting

1:15:24machines as statement of fact." Just

1:15:28utterly insane. Anyway, the media

1:15:30obviously took a keen interest in these

1:15:32far-fetched allegations which Sydney

1:15:33Power was making. But it would be Rudy

1:15:35Giuliani who actually got the most

1:15:37attention after this press conference.

1:15:39You see, for close to 40 minutes, he

1:15:41would embark on a genuinely deranged

1:15:44rant about how the election was stolen.

1:15:46And this in turn made him very sweaty.

1:15:48This resulted in a series of now

1:15:50infamous images where the very

1:15:52impassioned 76-year-old has his eyes

1:15:54bulging, his tongue partially out, and

1:15:56there's a mysterious black liquid,

1:15:58likely his hair dye, dripping down the

1:16:01side of his cheek. Unfortunately for

1:16:03Giuliani, no sane person with a

1:16:05reasonable point to make has ever been

1:16:08photographed looking like this as they

1:16:10pled their case. But okay, going back to

1:16:11Pal for a moment, her claims about

1:16:13Dominion voting machines were so batshit

1:16:16crazy that even Tucker Carlson was

1:16:19skeptical of them. Keep in mind, this is

1:16:21a man from a network which was about to

1:16:23be relentlessly sued for all of the

1:16:25misinformation and lies they spread

1:16:27about the election during this point in

1:16:28time. And even they had some pause about

1:16:31the nonsense which was coming out of

1:16:33Cydney Pal's mouth. So, we invited

1:16:34Sydney Pal on this show. We would have

1:16:36given her the whole hour. We would have

1:16:38given her the entire week actually and

1:16:40listened quietly the whole time at

1:16:41wrapped attention. That's a big story.

1:16:45But she never sent us any evidence

1:16:47despite a lot of requests, polite

1:16:49requests, not a page. When we kept

1:16:51pressing, she got angry and told us to

1:16:53stop contacting her. When we checked

1:16:55with others around the Trump campaign,

1:16:57people in positions of authority, they

1:16:58told us Powell has never given them any

1:17:00evidence either, nor did she provide any

1:17:03today at the press conference. Powell

1:17:05did say that electronic voting is

1:17:07dangerous, and she's right. We're with

1:17:08her there. But she never demonstrated

1:17:10that a single actual vote was moved

1:17:13illegitimately by software from one

1:17:15candidate to another. Not one. Put

1:17:17simply, there was zero evidence to back

1:17:20up the preposterous claims that Pal was

1:17:22making. When one of her lawsuits against

1:17:24Dominion and their voting machines

1:17:25reached a Michigan court in early

1:17:27December, the judge noted how no proof

1:17:29was actually given that any votes were

1:17:31flipped and instead Pal's legal team had

1:17:34only brought quote an amalgamation of

1:17:36theories, conjecture, and speculation

1:17:38that such alterations were possible. I

1:17:40hope it goes without saying, but that

1:17:42case was dismissed. Ultimately,

1:17:44Dominion's voting machines were

1:17:46completely fine. No evidence ever

1:17:48emerged showing a single case of fraud,

1:17:51cheating, or rigged. In fact, Dominion

1:17:54would have the last laugh in all of this

1:17:55as they would go on to sue Fox News,

1:17:58Newsmax, One American News, Sydney Pal,

1:18:00and Rudy Giuliani for all of the lies

1:18:02they intentionally spread about the

1:18:04company. Fox would settle for almost

1:18:06$800 million. Newsmax settled for, oh

1:18:09god, $67 million. And the other

1:18:11settlements were not disclosed to the

1:18:13public. Generally, you don't have to

1:18:14cough up huge sums of money like that

1:18:17unless you were really [ __ ] wrong

1:18:18about something. Now, the final

1:18:20conspiracy theory we're going to cover

1:18:22is a specific incident which occurred in

1:18:24Fulton County, Georgia. On December 3rd,

1:18:26Rudy Giuliani and his legal team would

1:18:28present a highly edited video from a

1:18:30polling station on election night to

1:18:32Georgia state lawmakers during a hearing

1:18:34on election integrity.

1:18:35>> So, now they're going to start pulling

1:18:36these ballots out from under this table.

1:18:39This table, the black one, was placed

1:18:42there by the lady with the blonde braids

1:18:45at about 8:22 a.m. in the morning. So,

1:18:48she put that table there.

1:18:51So, the same person who's staying behind

1:18:52now, the same person who cleared the

1:18:54place out under the pretense that we're

1:18:55going to stop counting is the person who

1:18:58put the table there at 8:22 in the

1:19:01morning.

1:19:02>> Yeah. I saw four suitcases come out from

1:19:05underneath the table. So, what are these

1:19:07ballots doing there? separate from all

1:19:08the other ballots. And why are they only

1:19:10counting them whenever the place is

1:19:12cleared out with no witnesses?

1:19:13>> Then later on this hearing, Giuliani

1:19:15would draw some pretty serious

1:19:16conclusions from this footage.

1:19:18>> And when you look at what you saw on the

1:19:20video, which to me was a smoking gun,

1:19:22powerful smoking gun. Well, I don't have

1:19:27to be a genius to figure out what

1:19:29happened.

1:19:30>> And I I don't have to be a genius to

1:19:31figure out that those votes are not

1:19:33legitimate votes. You don't put

1:19:35legitimate votes under a table. Oh no.

1:19:37>> Wait until you throw the opposition out

1:19:40and in the middle of the night count

1:19:42them.

1:19:43>> We would have to be fools to think that.

1:19:45>> And as a nice little cherry on top,

1:19:47Giuliani would issue this tweet later

1:19:49that night. The videotape doesn't lie.

1:19:51Fulton County Democrats stole the

1:19:53election. It's now beyond doubt. Go to

1:19:55the tape. So from Giuliani's

1:19:57perspective, this footage showed a

1:19:59coordinated operation in which election

1:20:01observers were forced to leave the room

1:20:02so that fake Biden ballots could be

1:20:04pulled out from underneath the table and

1:20:06counted to rob Trump of a victory in

1:20:08Georgia. However, there was one problem

1:20:11with this interpretation of events. It

1:20:13was [ __ ] First of all, those were

1:20:16not suitcases being pulled out from

1:20:18underneath the table. To quote Matthew

1:20:19Mashburn, the chairman of the state

1:20:21election board in Georgia, those were

1:20:23standard secure containers that are

1:20:25ubiquitous in tabulation in Georgia, aka

1:20:28nothing out of the ordinary.

1:20:29Additionally, the votes inside those

1:20:31containers weren't some stash of fake

1:20:33Biden ballots being used to steal the

1:20:35election. They were literally just

1:20:36normal votes which had been processed

1:20:38earlier in the day. The video which

1:20:40Giuliani and his team showed the Senate

1:20:42hearing conveniently omitted the footage

1:20:43from an hour earlier when election

1:20:45workers could be seen on camera placing

1:20:48ballots which needed to be scanned into

1:20:50the containers, sealing them and sliding

1:20:52them under the table. This was also done

1:20:54in the full view of the press and

1:20:55election monitors. So, if they were

1:20:57trying to be sneaky about it, they

1:20:59weren't doing a very good job. Now, that

1:21:01brings us to the second part of the

1:21:03video. At 10:30 p.m., you can see that

1:21:05everyone is packing up the station and

1:21:06grabbing their coats because they think

1:21:08that counting is done for the night.

1:21:10However, as everyone is doing this, the

1:21:12election director at this station, Ralph

1:21:14Jones, receives a phone call from his

1:21:15supervisor, who informs him that they're

1:21:17not done and they have to keep counting.

1:21:19Jones then has the unfortunate task of

1:21:21telling all the election workers who are

1:21:23ready to go home that they have to stay

1:21:25and keep counting ballots, which is why

1:21:27they pull those four suitcases back out

1:21:29from under the table. Now, this sudden

1:21:31change in plan did lead to a brief

1:21:33mixup. Because the workers had started

1:21:35to pack everything up, the press and

1:21:37election observers took this as their

1:21:39cue to leave the polling station. You

1:21:41know, they thought things were done for

1:21:42the night. And to be fair, so did the

1:21:44election workers at that point. Anyway,

1:21:46they subsequently exited the building

1:21:48and this meant that they were already

1:21:50gone by the time that Jones got the

1:21:51phone call and had to tell everyone that

1:21:53they were going to keep counting. And oh

1:21:55my god, did this become a hotbed for

1:21:58even more conspiracy theories. As we saw

1:22:00in that hearing, Giuliani tried to frame

1:22:02this as though the observers were told

1:22:04to leave so that the election workers

1:22:06could start rigging the election without

1:22:08there being any witnesses. Additionally,

1:22:10there were people like Eric Trump who

1:22:11claimed on Facebook that Republican

1:22:13observers were intentionally cleared out

1:22:15due to a water mane burst so the fraud

1:22:17could commence. But this simply wasn't

1:22:19true. The chief investigator of this

1:22:21case, Francis Watson, reviewed all the

1:22:23footage, interviewed the workers who

1:22:25were present and swore in an affidavit

1:22:27that no observer or member of the press

1:22:29had been asked to leave. Again, they

1:22:32simply left of their own valition when

1:22:34everybody started packing up. Also, that

1:22:36water mane burst never actually

1:22:38occurred. There was a pipe leak in the

1:22:40morning at 6:00 a.m. which did delay

1:22:42ballot counting by 2 hours, but this

1:22:44didn't affect the situation more than 15

1:22:46hours later. But hold on. Even if there

1:22:48was no plot to intentionally remove the

1:22:50observers, they still weren't present in

1:22:52the room as votes were being counted,

1:22:54which is kind of problematic, right?

1:22:57Well, from a strictly legal sense, no.

1:22:59Actually, as Gabriel Sterling told

1:23:01reporters, who was a key election

1:23:02official in Georgia, state law permits

1:23:05observers to watch the vote counting

1:23:06process, but it wasn't a legal

1:23:08requirement for them to be there. That

1:23:10means the workers in that polling

1:23:11station were well within their right to

1:23:13tabulate votes, even though there were

1:23:14no independent witnesses present. Also,

1:23:17if it makes you feel better, one

1:23:18election observer would return to this

1:23:20polling station to watch the process at

1:23:22about 11:52 p.m. So, there was one

1:23:24person there for at least part of it. To

1:23:26really put the nail in the coffin here,

1:23:27Georgia was subject to two statewide

1:23:29recounts of the vote, which confirmed

1:23:31Biden's victory. And you also had

1:23:33investigators from the FBI analyze all

1:23:3514 hours of surveillance footage. To

1:23:37quote them directly, "Nothing irregular

1:23:39happened in the counting, and the

1:23:40allegations made by Mr. Giuliani were

1:23:43false." So, now that everybody knew for

1:23:45certain that this entire story was

1:23:47[ __ ] how do you think the Trump

1:23:49team would respond? Well, if you guessed

1:23:52that they'd continue to pedal this fake

1:23:54story because it benefited the narrative

1:23:55they were trying to fabricate, you'd be

1:23:58absolutely correct. In fact, 4 weeks

1:24:00later, Trump would directly reference

1:24:02this case as evidence of fraud during

1:24:04his speech at the Ellipse on January

1:24:066th. In Fulton County, REPUBLICAN POLL

1:24:09WATCHERS were ejected in some cases

1:24:12physically from the room under the false

1:24:15pretense of a pipe burst. Water mane

1:24:17burst. Everybody leave, which we now

1:24:20know was a total lie. Then election

1:24:24officials pull boxes. Democrats and

1:24:27suitcases of ballots out from under a

1:24:29table. You all saw it on television.

1:24:31Totally fraudulent. And illegally

1:24:33scanned them for nearly two hours.

1:24:36totally unsupervised.

1:24:38Tens of thousands of votes. This act

1:24:41coincided with a mysterious vote dump of

1:24:44up to 100,000 votes for Joe Biden.

1:24:48Almost none for Trump. Oh, that sounds

1:24:51fair.

1:24:51>> Literally everything he said there had

1:24:53already been disproven at that point,

1:24:55but he simply did not care. If a fake

1:24:57story could help him in the slightest to

1:25:00overturn the election, then he would

1:25:01amplify it without a second thought.

1:25:03Also, going back to December, it turns

1:25:06out that Giuliani was actually doubling

1:25:08down on this footage as evidence of

1:25:09fraud, despite the fact it wasn't, and

1:25:12he was getting seriously unhinged. Just

1:25:14listen to what he had to say on December

1:25:1610th about two black election workers

1:25:18who appeared in the footage

1:25:20>> earlier in the day of Ruby Freeman and

1:25:22Sha Freeman Moss and one other gentleman

1:25:25quite obviously surreptitiously passing

1:25:27around USB ports as if they're vials of

1:25:31heroin or cocaine. I mean, it's outst

1:25:33it's it's obvious to anyone who's a

1:25:35criminal investigator or prosecutor.

1:25:37They're engaged in surreptitious illegal

1:25:39activity again that day. And after a

1:25:41week ago, they're still walking around

1:25:43Georgia lying. Should have been they

1:25:46should have been uh should have been

1:25:47questioned already. Uh their places of

1:25:50work, their homes should have been

1:25:51searched for evidence of ballots, for

1:25:54evidence of USB ports, for evidence of

1:25:57voter fraud because they obviously were

1:25:59engaged in it. And Sh. It's available to

1:26:03300 million Americans to watch.

1:26:05>> Wow. We'll ignore the racist undertones

1:26:07to that accusation for a moment because

1:26:09it turns out there was an even bigger

1:26:11problem with Giuliani's allegation

1:26:13there. You see, these workers weren't

1:26:15passing around a USB port in the polling

1:26:17station, which is meant to, I don't

1:26:19know, hack into the voting machines. No,

1:26:22it was a [ __ ] ginger. Yeah, that is

1:26:25perhaps the single most innocuous thing

1:26:28you can be caught passing around. And

1:26:30look, whilst the absurdity of that

1:26:31accusation is funny in a vacuum, the

1:26:34real world consequences were a lot more

1:26:36serious. Both of the women which

1:26:37Giuliani just mentioned there would be

1:26:39endlessly harassed by Trump supporters.

1:26:41They'd received countless death threats,

1:26:43and the FBI would even instruct them to

1:26:46leave their homes for their own safety

1:26:48in the week leading up to January 6th.

1:26:51On top of that, the FBI would discover

1:26:53that one of the Capitol riers were in

1:26:55possession of an execution list which

1:26:57had both of the women's names on the

1:26:59document. This is what happens when you

1:27:01lie to your fanatical supporters for

1:27:03months on end and try to convince them

1:27:05of conspiracy theories which are just

1:27:07outright [ __ ] The only silver

1:27:09lining to this whole situation is that

1:27:11Giuliani was forced to pay $148 million

1:27:14in damages for the outrageous claims he

1:27:17made against these women during this

1:27:18time. And look, those are just three of

1:27:20the main areas which conspiracy

1:27:22theorists were obsessed with after the

1:27:24election. I could go on and on with

1:27:26other theories like Sharpie gate in

1:27:28which Trump supporters were

1:27:30intentionally given the wrong pens to

1:27:31invalidate their ballots. And there were

1:27:34even Chinese thermostats hacking voting

1:27:37machines. Yeah, that was that was one,

1:27:39too. I hope it goes without saying, but

1:27:41these claims were entirely baseless, as

1:27:44was literally every conspiracy theory

1:27:46about the 2020 election. But look, to

1:27:48wrap up on all these conspiracy

1:27:50theories, I want to highlight something

1:27:51important, which we alluded to a little

1:27:54earlier. Trump knew this was all

1:27:56[ __ ] Bill Bar, who was the attorney

1:27:58general at the time, would investigate

1:28:00all of the claims which Trump asked him

1:28:01to. He'd look into them and find out

1:28:03that they were completely [ __ ] He

1:28:05would relay that back to Trump, but it

1:28:07wouldn't matter. As Bar later told the

1:28:08January 6th committee, the president

1:28:10never showed any indication of interest

1:28:12in what the actual facts were. This is a

1:28:14sentiment shared by Chris Christie who

1:28:16told the media this year that the crap

1:28:18that Donald Trump put out there about

1:28:20the 2020 election is fiction. It's make

1:28:22believe. And by the way, I was there in

1:28:242020. He doesn't even believe it. He

1:28:26didn't believe it. He thought he lost

1:28:28and he was afraid he was going to lose

1:28:30all during that fall. But look, baseless

1:28:32conspiracy theories don't overturn an

1:28:34election on their own. I mean, sure,

1:28:36they make for a great justification,

1:28:38which all your supporters can rally

1:28:39behind, but if you actually want to

1:28:41nullify the democratic will of your

1:28:43country and illegally assert yourself as

1:28:45president, well, that means you got to

1:28:48do some actually criminal [ __ ]

1:28:52So, just before we can dive into how

1:28:54Donald Trump tried to overturn the

1:28:55election, we first need to understand

1:28:57how the electoral college works, i.e.

1:28:59the system the United States uses to

1:29:00pick its president. Basically, when

1:29:02Americans go out and vote on election

1:29:04day, they're not actually selecting the

1:29:05president themselves. Instead, their

1:29:07vote is going towards a group of

1:29:08electors from whatever state they live

1:29:09in. Now, two important things to note

1:29:11here. Firstly, the amount of electors

1:29:13scales with the population of the state.

1:29:15For example, California is home to

1:29:16almost 40 million people. So, they get a

1:29:18group of 55 electors, whereas Wyoming

1:29:20only gets a group of three electors

1:29:22because they are home to just 700,000

1:29:23people. Now, secondly, each political

1:29:25party on a state level is responsible

1:29:27for selecting their group or slate of

1:29:29electors. If we go back to our example

1:29:30in California before the election, the

1:29:32Democrats will pick their slate of 55

1:29:34Democratic electors and the Republicans

1:29:36will pick their slate of 55 Republican

1:29:38electors. Then whichever party in that

1:29:40state receives the most votes is the

1:29:42winner and their slate of electors are

1:29:43the ones who get to go and vote for the

1:29:45president. In California in 2020, Biden

1:29:47received 11 million votes, which was a

1:29:49whole lot more than Trump's 6 million

1:29:50votes. So, it's his 55 Democratic

1:29:52electors who participate in the

1:29:54electoral college and vote for him as

1:29:56president. Now, you may be wondering,

1:29:57what happens to the Republican slate of

1:29:59electors in California? Well, because

1:30:01they receive less votes and therefore

1:30:02lost the election. Nothing. They have

1:30:04literally no purpose to serve. And

1:30:06please keep this in mind for later. Now,

1:30:08before those 55 Democratic electors can

1:30:10go out and vote for Biden, the state

1:30:12first needs to certify its election

1:30:14results. In California, this occurred on

1:30:15December 4th when Alex Padilla, the

1:30:17Secretary of State, officially signed

1:30:19the certification. Once that's been

1:30:21sorted, you send the governor of the

1:30:22state who has to prepare a document

1:30:24known as the certificate of