{"id":313,"date":"2026-07-20T20:37:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanhousingtransition.com\/?p=313"},"modified":"2026-07-20T20:37:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:37:53","slug":"maga-media-lap-up-trumps-election-interference-exaggerations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanhousingtransition.com\/?p=313","title":{"rendered":"MAGA Media Lap Up Trump\u2019s Election-Interference Exaggerations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks. This week, we look at the reactions from MAGA media to President Trump\u2019s recent claims about election security, and we cover more media misses.<\/p>\n

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Trump\u2019s \u2018Explosive\u2019 Claims Require \u2018Explosive\u2019 Evidence<\/span><\/p>\n

President Trump\u2019s Thursday night address alleging a sweeping plot by foreign adversaries to interfere in the 2020 election \u2014 concealed by anti-Trump operatives in the \u201cdeep state\u201d \u2014 was greeted with rapturous applause by segments of the MAGA media.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s most ardent allies claimed his address was \u201cexplosive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump Just EXPOSED Massive Election FRAUD on LIVE TV\u00a0 \u2014 This Just Changed EVERYTHING,\u201d said right-wing YouTuber Benny Johnson. \u201cNBC, CBS, ABC and CNN all REFUSED to cover this. They know President Trump was right about election fraud from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jack Posobiec went so far as to claim, \u201cThe Chinese attack on US sovereignty and democracy by sabotaging our elections is the worst attack on our country since 9\/11.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laura Loomer, for her part, said, \u201cChina helped the Democrats steal the 2020 Presidential election so they could fast track the communist takeover over America! It\u2019s time for people to go to jail!\u201d<\/p>\n

But even she questioned, ten minutes into the speech, if the president was sharing \u201cnew information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loomer was right to hesitate.<\/p>\n

In his prime time address Trump rehashed information that\u2019s been in the public domain for years and misrepresented newly released government documents, which demonstrate real but measured concern about foreign threats among intelligence officials, but fall well short of providing evidence that our current system is hopelessly compromised.<\/p>\n

Trump alleged that China carried out \u201cthe largest compromise of election data in history\u201d and was able to obtain data from 220 million U.S. voter files, giving the CCP access to names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences and \u201cother sensitive data.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the information found in voter files is not particularly sensitive, nor secret. The identifying information is largely accessible to the general public.<\/p>\n

Trump also dedicated significant time to revisiting a voter-fraud scheme in Michigan that made headlines at the time and was stopped before any fraudulent votes could be cast.<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t stop Trump-friendly outlets from lapping up his version of events.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s Declassified Docs Detail Massive Michigan Voter Registration Fraud,\u201d The Federalist <\/em>headlined its report about Trump\u2019s speech, pulling out the claims as though they were a massive revelation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMollie Hemingway was right. The 2020 election was rigged,\u201d the story\u2019s lede reads. It goes on to claim that Trump \u201cwalked through some of the more egregious attacks on election integrity and security in a 2020 election that government bureaucrats absurdly declared \u2018the most secure in American history\u2019\u201d and that the president \u201cbrought the receipts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the more damning documents come from the FBI\u2019s investigation into a leftist voter registration scheme in swing state Michigan, where Democrat Joe Biden, as he did in other battlegrounds, claimed a narrow victory. The declassified records offer a window into a massive voter registration fraud operation in Muskegon, Michigan, and a years-long investigation that tracked as many as 10,000 suspicious or forged registration forms submitted in the weeks before election. They also undercut the real Big Lie by Democrats and their accomplice media pals, that election administration in the 2020 election is beyond reproach,\u201d the report adds.<\/p>\n

However, investigators made the public aware of the probe at the time. A local clerk said hundreds of \u201cirregular\u201d applications had been caught, and no fraudulent votes or registrations were successful, a sign that the system was working as intended.<\/p>\n

Trump claimed the areas of concern that he brought forth \u2014 the fraud in Michigan, the alleged Chinese interference, noncitizens on voter rolls, and the \u201cdeep state\u201d cover up \u2014 \u201creveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He painted a grim picture:<\/p>\n

\n

Hundreds of millions of U.S. voter files are in the hands of foreign governments. Our machines and ballot counting systems are exposed to hacking and manipulation and corruption. China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections. Evidence of fraud has been buried. Hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And some \u2014 but not all \u2014 of his supporters ate it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is INSANE. Thank God President Trump\u2019s Administration is getting to the bottom of this once and for all,\u201d the House Republican Conference reacted.<\/p>\n

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said Trump had released \u201castonishing information\u201d about China meddling in U.S. elections, while Breitbart <\/em>Washington bureau chief Matthew Boyle said the speech \u201cwas sobering, fact-filled, and laid out very serious vulnerabilities in our election systems that should have bipartisan support to fix.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cAt the very least, you could say that\u2019s a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat . . .\u00a0 at the most, you could say a conspiracy against the Constitution,\u201d Epoch Times<\/em> reporter Joshua Philipp said on One America News Network.<\/p>\n

But the documents in many cases did not appear to support Trump\u2019s lofty claims.<\/p>\n

For example, the documents show that there is evidence that China tried to influence Americans to support the CCP and that Chinese leaders were in fact critical of Trump. But the assessments around China came from intelligence officers who said they had only low or medium confidence in their findings.<\/p>\n

Trump went on to claim Americans have been lied to about the security of U.S. infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot counting systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re vulnerable and they\u2019re easily compromised and people within our government knew that,\u201d he claimed, adding that at least one assessment claimed U.S. adversaries including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea \u201chave the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the documents Trump released show people within his administration saying the exact opposite: that there\u2019s no evidence that any foreign government was successful in actually changing votes, despite their efforts to gather information about U.S. elections.<\/p>\n

Trump pointed to Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s successful efforts to rig vote counts within his own country in 2020 as evidence that a regime can digitally alter vote totals \u201cin ways that could not be detected even with an audit.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the documents Trump released include a CIA analysis that found Venezuelan officials had \u201csome capability in manipulating electronic voting systems\u201d to influence the outcomes of races in their own country, but that the officials did not have the ability to change votes in other countries.<\/p>\n

Trump explained his failure to confront these foreign and domestic threats ahead of the 2020 election by claiming that deep state actors conspired to keep information about the various election interference plots out of his Presidential Daily Brief (PDB).<\/p>\n

The heavily redacted documents released by the White House do include several emails from intelligence officials expressing frustration that their views about foreign election interference were not being reflected in the PDB. But the PDB is a collaborative intelligence product, cobbled together out of a mountain of information gathered by several massive intelligence agencies. Agents and administration officials are constantly jockeying to get their preferred information into the brief \u2014\u00a0but because it\u2019s meant to be consumed by a single person each day, it can only be so long.<\/p>\n

These emails prove that there was a diversity of views within the first Trump administration regarding how seriously to take foreign election interference threats \u2014 but they fall well short of proving that left-wing extremists and foreign adversaries have compromised our election system under the protection of traitorous elements within our own government. Trump delivered his prime time address to convince his followers of that central claim, to convince them that they can\u2019t trust our elections unless his pet piece of election-security legislation, the SAVE Act, passes. If, in the bargain, a significant portion of our country permanently loses faith in our democratic process as a result of Trump\u2019s gambit, so be it.<\/p>\n

While Trump\u2019s most sycophantic supporters in the media lapped up his claims, some elected Republicans appear more circumspect: The New York Times <\/em>reported that the speech largely landed with a \u201cwhimper among Republicans on Capitol Hill and in campaigns around the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it was meant to influence people like me, it didn\u2019t get me there,\u201d Senator Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) told the outlet. \u201cWhat we heard last night was there are foreign interests trying to influence us, but they weren\u2019t effective at basically hacking into our system. I don\u2019t think there was much last night that would change views on whether we should pass the SAVE Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox News aired the speech in its entirety on Thursday night, but Fox & Friends <\/em>avoided the topic in its Friday morning broadcast, instead discussing the war in Iran and wildfire smoke in Canada.<\/p>\n

Headline Fail of the Week<\/p>\n

Sally Quinn wrote for the New York Times<\/em>, \u201cIt\u2019s No Longer So Much Fun to Be MAGA in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe MAGA Republicans don\u2019t seem to be having such a good time ransacking the place anymore.\u201d They\u2019re \u201cin despair, fearful and losing hope,\u201d her column claimed.<\/p>\n

However, Quinn backs up her claims with evidence from . . . Democrats?<\/p>\n

Quinn supports her \u201creporting\u201d with the opinions of Democratic insider Steven Rattner; Democratic Senator Mark Warner; former judge and anti-Trump activist Mike Luttig; \u201cthe presidential historian Michael Beschloss, who from Day 1 of Mr. Trump\u2019s first term warned of a potential dictatorship\u201d; and liberal editor Leon Wieseltier.<\/p>\n

NR\u2019s Ramesh Ponnuru criticized the report on Monday, writing, \u201cSo Sally Quinn sensed a mood, and the Times<\/em> hit \u2018publish.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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Media Misses<\/p>\n