- Actually, I think I came in first.
Oh, that voter fraud!
You know, these politicians are brutal.
- Donald Trump's voter-fraud narrative isn't new.
- Talking about millions of illegal votes
is dangerous to this country, without presenting the evidence.
- No, not at all, because many people feel
the same way that I do.
- And after losing the presidency
to Joe Biden in 2020,
he weaponized the same rhetoric to declare an entire election,
and the nation's highest office, stolen.
- We were getting ready to win this election.
Frankly, we did win this election.
We did win this election.
[crowd cheers]
-Election denialism has increasingly become
a litmus test for Republicans
running for statewide and federal office in 2022.
According to a Post analysis,
more than half of all Republican primary winners
for statewide or federal office in 2022
have embraced Trump's false claims about the 2020 election.
Dozens more have won on election-integrity platforms
that trade, in part,
on Trump's stolen-election rhetoric.
- This narrative is fully the main platform
of the Republican Party right now.
- In six states where Trump sought to overturn
the election results in 2020, more than 60% of statewide
or federal Republican-primary winners
are election-denier candidates.
- I've got some very good friends,
longtime supporters of mine, who are absolutely convinced.
I mean, they believe the president
by saying that the election was stolen.
- When I did my biggest fundraiser,
with well-heeled folks that I've known for decades,
you know, and said, nine months after January 6th,
that the election --
that the election was over and Trump lost, people gasped.
- Roughly 6 in 10 Republicans say they believe
Joe Biden won the 2020 election due to voter fraud.
And 51% of Republicans
say they like political leaders who say that
Trump is the legitimate winner of the 2020 election.
- The more election deniers you have,
the more the Big Lie serves as a litmus test,
the more that empowers former President Trump.
- Since the 2020 election,
state Republican officials have passed laws
making it harder to vote,
in the name of election integrity.
According to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice,
which tracks voting legislation,
19 states passed 34 voting laws in 2021.
More than 400 voting bills were proposed in 49 states
that year, according to the Center.
Critics say these laws restrict voting access.
- Even people who said Joe Biden was the proper winner
have traded on the rhetoric and have traded on the belief,
among Republican voters,
that there was something fishy about 2020,
and Brian Kemp is among those.
- It's further securing the absentee-ballot process.
So, really, it's an election-integrity bill,
but also expands access.
- I interviewed lawmakers who told me, "I have to do this.
I'd get killed in a primary.
My supporters, my constituents,
believe that the election was stolen".
To say that you have to restore security of elections suggests
that there's a lack of security,
and that has never been demonstrated.
- [chanting] Stop the steal!
Stop the steal!
Stop the steal! Stop the steal!
- When rioters stormed the Capitol on January 6th,
they echoed the false claims from Trump
and his Republican supporters about the 2020 election.
- President Trump won this election,
so, everyone who's listening, do not be quiet.
Do not be silent about this.
- President Trump should not concede.
There are allegations of system failure, fraud.
- We're fixing to overturn the results of the election
in multiple states.
- What we're seeing, with the 2020 election,
is what we're calling participatory disinformation,
which included, you know, these messages from the top,
which set this frame
that there was going to be massive voter fraud;
and then this bottom-up effort by everyday people.
- That participatory nature, the "Hey, I saw this.
Did you see this, as well"?
is extraordinarily, "A," viral,
and effective as a disinformation strategy.
And when those two things matched up,
we saw this narrative hyper-spread.
- When the riot was quelled, hours later,
147 Republicans voted to reject the election results in Arizona
or Pennsylvania, two of six states
where Trump had tried to overturn the results.
Many of those Republicans
are running for reelection again in 2022.
- I firmly believe,
and even conversations I've had in private with,
you know, people on the other side of the aisle,
that they know there was no fraud in the election.
They were going along with this to propel,
essentially, a political motive
that would continue to promote them
and their, you know, quest for power.
- Republicans quickly reembraced Trump after the Capitol attack,
which the January 6th Committee is now investigating.
- The January 6th Committee has been really interested
in trying to figure out if there was some explicit reason
for why Republicans so quickly pivoted --
specifically, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
- You know why we won that?
President Trump worked on all these races.
- If the president was the party's nominee,
would you support him?
- Oh, the nominee of the party? Absolutely.
- I think that McCarthy completely failed
in his leadership of the Republican Party.
He did his calculus on what's the most likely thing for him
to be Speaker, not what's good for the country.
- Congressman Tom Rice was one of 10 House Republicans
who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6th Capitol attack.
He lost his 2022 primary after refusing to say
the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
- People very clearly told me that they didn't appreciate
my voting to impeach the president.
I think people are getting more and more tired
of Donald Trump every single day,
and I think, the sooner that happens,
the better off the Republican Party will be.
- In midterms, we're seeing that same narrative,
about distrust in elections themselves,
not applied to the results of that election,
but extended to the future results of all elections,
and that is an extraordinarily dangerous place
for our democracy to be in.
- I have an opponent in my upcoming election
who will not say that President Joe Biden
legitimately won the election.
- Absolute loyalty has always been Donald Trump's litmus test.
Trump understands that, if you're willing to accept
something that no thinking person can accept,
then you will do anything for him.
- The content that's out there, that's, you know, sowing doubt
in the election right now, is more than it was in 2020.
- I get to appoint the secretary of state,
and that secretary of state is going to clean up election laws.
- Corruption in our election
systems is a national security threat.
- Donald Trump won.
- And 2022 is also about 2024.
If something like this happens again in 2024,
where a political party doesn't like the results,
that they might be able to actually challenge them,
based on these kinds of false narratives.
- We're looking at a comprehensive assault
on the electoral system,
and it's scary to me that Donald Trump
has positioned his Republican Party
outside of the constitutional order.
- You know they say, in every election,
every election,
"This is the most important election in your lifetime".
2024 will, in fact, be that.
- There's a direct line between these elections
and what happens with our next elections.
These officeholders have the power to block certification.
Whether the courts would intervene, we don't know.
That hasn't been tested yet.
- I ran twice, I won twice.
And now we may have to do it again.