Asking whether convicted felon Trump cheated in this election does NOT make you an "election denier"

Don't let GOPers and Never Trumpers silence you!

After Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, he unleashed a non-stop barrage of fabricated BS to undermine the results. Trump’s  lies of a “rigged election” ranged from claiming he had gathered “overwhelming evidence about a fake election” to “thousands of dead people” voted in key states to voting software had “switched thousands of votes” to Joe Biden and the list goes on and on.

That is what election denying looks like. It’s knowingly peddling lies to mislead people about an election that Trump’s own top officials, recounts and the courts had confirmed was accurate.

In contrast, asking questions in good faith in the days after the election is not election denying. It’s called critical thinking. It’s what intelligent, patriotic Americans do. Indeed, the facts surrounding the 2024 election and who Trump is himself demand questions be asked.

For starters, Trump cheated and attempted to cheat in both the 2016 and 2020 election. He was convicted by a jury of 34 felonies for cheating in the 2016 election. As Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg repeatedly made clear, Trump was not being prosecuted for paying “hush money” to cover up an affair. Rather, as Bragg stated before the trial, Trump was charged for “conspiring to corrupt a presidential election and then lying in New York business records to cover it up.”

After the 2020 election, Trump attempted to cheat again. This time he tried to remain in power despite losing by first peddling a tsunami of lies about the election results and then taking actions to overturn the 2020 election—which culminated with his Jan 6 terrorist attack on our Capitol. That is why Trump is charged with felonies in both federal court and Fulton County, Georgia.

As the four count indictment in the federal case reads, “Despite having lost, the Defendant [Trump] was determined to remain in power.”  From there, as detailed in the indictment, Trump “pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.”

Heightening the motivation Trump had to cheat was that Trump was not just running to win, he was running to avoid dying in a prison cell. That would cause many people—not just Trump--to cheat in order to win the election.

Adding to the concerns of potential election wrongdoing is that Trump had the backing of the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk, who has a documented history of peddling election lies during this campaign to help Trump. Musk invested more than $100 million to help Trump win. Musk’s apparent goals with this massive INVESTMENT was both to make more money by Trump allowing him to create a monopoly in his fields to stopping the Biden administration’s 10 plus investigations into his business practices ranging from anti-union activities to racial discrimination to potential crimes.

Yes, Musk’s potential crimes. In 2023, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York opened a criminal investigation into personal benefits paid to Musk by Tesla and his other companies going back years to determine if the companies “properly disclosed perks.” Under federal law, shareholders have a legal right to know such info and as the WSJ reported in Sept 2023, “Musk has at times personally guided what information to disclose to shareholders.”  The WSJ continued, “Federal prosecutors are scrutinizing personal benefits” paid to Musk and “they are pursuing potential criminal charges.”

But Musk knew helping Trump win would end all of this. And it will.

Putting Trump and his allies aside, adding to the doubts many harbor about the 2024 election result was Vice President Harris’s campaign. For starters, we had not seen the level of energy and enthusiasm surrounding a Democratic presidential candidate’s campaign since Barack Obama. In fact, a Gallup poll found in August 2024 that Democratic enthusiasm was the highest since 2008. And as Axios reported on Nov 1, new Gallup polling released days before the election found Democratic enthusiasm eclipsing that among Republican voters by ten points.

In addition, we saw the headlines about Harris breaking fundraising records such as the NY Times reporting on Oct. 21 that read, “Harris Sets Record for Biggest Fund-Raising Quarter Ever.” As the article noted, Harris had raised in September $378 million while Trump only brought in $160 million.

Then there were the crowds. Harris drew 75,000 to the Ellipse on the Tuesday before the election and packed venue after venue with tens of thousands. Meanwhile Trump was doing the opposite. In the final week of the campaign, we saw headlines like this one from NBC News, “Trump's once enthusiastic crowds dwindle in election's closing days.” As the article detailed, “At his second rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, the arena appeared about half-full. In Macon, Georgia, on Sunday, Trump didn't fill the venue he was speaking at…His events in Kingston, North Carolina, and Lititz, Pennsylvania, on Sunday likewise drew only a couple of thousand people.”

All of this begs the question: How could VP Harris legitimately lose every battleground state?! And all of this is why a new Economist poll found released Friday found only 52% of Harris supporters believe Trump “legitimately” won the 2024 election. In contrast, 97% of Republicans think the election was fair and square. Of course if Trump had lost, we know from history that they would have overwhelmingly agreed with Trump the 2024 election was stolen.

These facts—together with common sense--is what is fueling the concerns Democrats have about the integrity of this election. It’s also why I posted on social media sharing that countless Democrats have called my show to express concerns—which really angered many on the right from the people of MAGA to especially the “Never Trump Republicans” as you can see in this article slamming my post.  None of these people are Democrats so I truly don’t give a crap what they think or say about us.

But my response to people’s concerns has been the same since the start: Show me credible, objective evidence of fraud. Some have emailed anecdotal examples but even those people have noted they didn’t see widespread evidence of fraud. If I saw any credible evidence, I would flag it for all.  But as a former trial lawyer I must say that without that, there is nothing that can be done.

I would, though, recommend that Biden’s DHS hold a press conference to ensure voters that there was no hacking of voting databases by any bad actors, that the elections were secure, etc. In fact, that should be a tradition going forward after every presidential election in the hopes of addressing concerns and increasing confidence in the results.

We know the bulk of the GOP only accepts the results when they win. We can’t also be like that or our democratic Republic will end. But at the same time, we should not be mindless sheep, simply accepting whatever we are told by elected officials without asking questions or demanding answers. That, too, is how a democratic Republic can end.

To sum up: There is currently no credible, objective evidence of fraud or any other criminal conduct that supports claims that the 2024 election was illegitimate. There are theories but without credible evidence—meaning the type that can be admitted into evidence in a court—these will remain just theories. But this doesn’t mean people should not ask questions and look to gather such evidence.

Barring that type of proof being presented in the very near future, our laser focus must be on taking the fight to Trump and building a stronger and broader coalition grounded on policies that truly help people. That is how we win.

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