Multiple TV networks — including MSNBC, NBC News, CNBC, CBS News and ABC News — cut away from a speech filled with falsehoods from Donald Trump, in which he baselessly claimed he was being cheated in the election, spread misinformation about the legality of mail-in ballots and falsely claimed he would have won if only the “legal” votes were counted.
“Here we are again, in the unusual position of not only interrupting the president of the United States but correcting the president of the United States,” Brian Williams said as MSNBC decided to cut away said. “There are no illegal votes that we know of, there has been no Trump victory that we know of.”
He later added, “It was not rooted in reality and at this point, where our country is, it’s dangerous.”
On CBS News, Norah O’Donnell cut away to correspondent Nancy Cordes to fact-check Trump’s misleading statements that his numbers were “getting whittled away miraculously” after Election Day.
“There was no miracle there. Every single election analyst was shouting from the rooftops before the election that that’s exactly what was going to happen — that in-person voting was going to be counted first, it would make it look like the president was ahead. But then as you started counting the mail-in ballots, that it could start to shift,” Cordes said.
NBC News’ Lester Holt also cut away from Trump’s speech and said the president was making “a number of false statements, including the notion that there has been fraudulent voting.”
“There has been no evidence of that,” Holt said.
On CNBC, Shepard Smith interrupted Trump’s speech and said, “What the president of the United States is saying, in large part, is absolutely untrue.”
“We’re not going to allow it to keep going because it’s not true,” Smith continued as he began fact-checking the president’s statements.
Though both CNN and Fox News aired Trump’s remarks uninterrupted, CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale tweeted that it was “the most dishonest speech he has ever given” while Jake Tapper said on-air that Trump’s statements were “pathetic” and a “feast of falsehoods.”
“That is the president of the United States. That is the most powerful person in the world, and we see him like an obese turtle on his back flailing in the hot sun, realizing his time is over, but he just hasn’t accepted it and he wants to take everyone down with him, including this country,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper added.
On Fox News, host Martha MacCallum said that the supposed “evidence” and “proof” of election misconduct that Trump alleged would need to be “produced.”
MacCallum wasn’t alone. Her Fox News colleagues Bret Baier and John Roberts also joined in to question Trump’s assertions.
“Now, in terms of fraud or abuse or found ballots or whatever, the president talked a lot about that. But we haven’t seen any widespread evidence that that is the case. I did forward around a short time ago a letter from the Trump campaign to the district attorney in Clark County, Nevada, in which it is alleged that thousands of people who were not legal residents of Nevada cast votes in Clark County,” Roberts said. “I mean, that could be some evidence of fraudulent voting. We don’t know. It’s a claim at this point. But other than that, Bret and Martha, I haven’t really seen anything that would constitute any kind of flagrant fraud or abuse of the system. Perhaps I just haven’t heard about it. Perhaps Fox News hasn’t heard about it.”
“We haven’t seen it yet. We have not seen the evidence yet, John. And I just want to note something that was very stark was that as the president is talking there about these various states, as he’s saying that Democrats are stealing an election and that it’s a corrupt system, on the other side of the screen because of the way we have the graphics set up, literally, the votes are going down in Georgia. Now a 3,600 vote spread between President Trump and former Vice President Biden,” Baier said. “In Pennsylvania the spread now 64,000. That was happening as the president was talking. We have not seen the hard evidence. He claims that his campaign is going forward with these legal lawsuits and they’re going to produce it. But those spreads are getting much more narrow and possibly will change as time goes on.”
As of Thursday evening, a winner has not been projected in the presidential race between Trump and Biden.
Take a look at the moment some of the major networks cut away from Trump’s remarks below.
FACT CHECK: Pres. Trump claimed that if the "legal" votes are counted in Georgia he wins, but that if "illegal" votes are counted Joe Biden wins.
There is no indication of any substantive number of illegal votes, @nancycordes reports. pic.twitter.com/iro25eikMh
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) November 6, 2020
MSNBC immediately cuts off Trump when he moves to undermine the integrity of US election system.
"Here we are again in the unusual position of not only interrupting the President of the United States but correcting the President of the United States…" pic.twitter.com/IwVshBmosK
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) November 5, 2020
WATCH: @lesterholtnbc fact-checks remarks made by President Trump during White House press conference. pic.twitter.com/ipWA7afZ3V
— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 6, 2020
President Trump just spoke at the White House, as key states continue to count votes.
Shep has the facts: “What the President of the United States is saying, in large part, is absolutely untrue.” #Election2020 https://t.co/E6DBt6OodD pic.twitter.com/HVa87qUCzB— The News with Shepard Smith (@thenewsoncnbc) November 6, 2020
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