SerpApi.Org
NBC News correspondent Ryan Nobles has suggested Donald Trump's latest fraud claims are unlikely to change the results of the 2020 election.
The president used a primetime address to the nation on Thursday, July 16, to continue raising doubts about the legitimacy of US elections and dispute his 2020 loss to Joe Biden in an appeal for more restrictive voting laws ahead of the midterms. "America is back and doing really well, but we still have a major challenge that must be urgently addressed, because no country can be great without fair and honest elections," he said, while issuing a warning about what he described as flaws in the voting system.
Trump, 80, revealed he was releasing previously classified documents related to the 2020 and 2018 elections, when he lost the presidential election and his party suffered losses. But despite making several allegations of interference and influence in elections, the president did not produce evidence that votes had been manipulated or that the election outcome had been altered.
• Fox News drops humiliating clarification for Trump after his bombshell claims
• Rosie O'Donnell makes bombshell U-turn as she 'admits' she 'doesn't hate Donald Trump'
The president also alleged in his speech that a state investigation by Michigan law enforcement discovered a voter registration fraud scheme by a Democratic-affiliated group, but was prevented by the FBI from taking action before the statute of limitations expired. While he provided no evidence of votes or tabulations being changed, or voting machines being hacked, Trump said, "It was pay, play and cheat."
Commenting on the speech - which networks including ABC, NBC and CNN didn't air - on NBC News Special Report, correspondents Kelly O'Donnell, Ryan Nobles and Dan De Luce examined some of the president's claims. At some point, host Hallie Jackson asked Nobles, who covers Congress in Washington, D.C., to comment on the Michigan allegations.
The journalist said Trump's claims on Michigan refer to "a very small, narrow investigation that was launched by the FBI during that time, in the week of the 2020 election." The allegations stem historically from irregularities first flagged by the city clerk's office in Muskegon, Michigan.
Nobles stressed that despite claims there was an effort to manipulate the election in the state, the FBI "looked into it, decided there was nothing to it, and the investigation basically stopped." The NBC correspondent continued by saying Trump "is alleging that it was Biden's justice department that looked the other way because they didn't want the results of this."
However, he said during the panel discussion that even though any irregularities were to be found, this would be unlikely to change the results of the election. He said, "Now, this is from Muskegon. This is not the most Democratic area in the state of Michigan. But the idea that you would cherry-pick this one specific precinct, this one specific county, and then allege that the entire country is the victim of vast voter fraud, I think you'd have to raise your eyebrows about that."
Nobles continued, "Now, do they find new evidence that they have uncovered as a result of this? Could they find people that are guilty of voter fraud? That's not impossible. But would it change the results of the 2020 election? That's almost impossible."
Trump's speech last night focused on China but glossed over Russia, a country that intelligence officials have said favored Trump in 2016 and 2020 and engaged in wide-ranging influence campaigns aimed at boosting him over Democrat Biden in the latter campaign. Despite focusing on China in his speech, Trump did not criticize or issue a warning to Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he has long praised.
Election security experts say America's decentralized voting system, with the power over elections residing with the states instead of the federal government, is a strength. Americans vote in more than 10,000 different jurisdictions with different rules, making the nations' elections extraordinarily complicated but safe from widespread fraud.
No credible intelligence has emerged showing that the vote count in 2020 was manipulated by foreign actors. Repeated audits and reviews - many run by Republicans, including Trump's own then-attorney general - have found no significant fraud occurred in 2020.
Even if substantiated, Trump's claims did not amount to conduct that would have altered the outcome of any race, let alone the 2020 race for the White House. He also did not raise doubts about his election wins in 2016 or 2024.
