Media deceit over mail-in voting has been routine as both Democrats and Republicans argue over how best to handle voting amid the coronavirus pandemic. Predictably, the left-wing press have consistently come down on the side of the Democrats on this issue for months. But after a Tuesday interview in which President Trump once again criticized the electoral process, MSNBC had to go into full DNC mode and keep pushing partisan talking points.
In the 9:00 a.m. ET hour, anchor Stephanie Ruhle started off a segment by trashing Trump:
Developing now, President Trump threatening to sue the state of Nevada after the governor there signed a bill allowing mail-in voting. The President making the legal threat after firing off a tweet calling Nevada's move a, quote, "Illegal late-night coup suggesting mail-in voting will make it impossible for Republicans to win in Nevada this November." At the same time, the battle over mail-in voting is playing out this morning in Michigan. The state that's holding its primary today and it is largely being viewed as a dry run for November. This is Michigan's first election cycle with what it calls no-excuse absentee voting.
What Ruhle refused to tell viewers was that Michigan is sending a ballot application to every citizen registered to vote, regardless of whether or not they requested it or even planned to vote by mail. Moves like these have been done by states like California and bring into question serious allegations of voter fraud.
But the activist host paid no attention to that controversy, instead insisting that she needed to ‘fact-check’ Trump:
Let's go to NBC News senior political editor Mark Murray. President Trump blasting what he is calling a new phenomenon, mail-in voting, though he has voted absentee a number of times and saying there's too high a risk for fraud. He's vowing to sue Nevada over it. Can you please fact-check this?
What is there to fact-check? CBS released the results of its mail-in voting experiment last month and their results were an astounding 3% failure rate, and it took over four days for those ballots to arrive. With that failure rate, if 100 million Americans vote by mail across the country, three million of those votes may never be counted. But that didn’t stop guest Mark Murray from whistling past the graveyard and pretending all was well:
All trying to deal with, how do you end up making sure that everyone can vote during a pandemic? This is a public policy challenge. Democrats have decided they want to be able to have everyone, the opportunity to get mail-in ballots. Republicans disagree. Maybe they want to actually say you should vote in person or have ballot applications mailed. But just fact-checking the President, he's absolutely wrong on the tweet he sent yesterday.
Ruhle took it one step further, saying that there was ‘no evidence’ of widespread voter fraud in mail-in voting, which ignores the facts. But her last statement was particularly egregious:
The President of the United States does not want to create a scenario where everyone eligible to vote will be able to actually do so. Just think about that.
MSNBC is setting up a scenario where if Democrats lose in November, they will howl and riot about voter suppression claims. Think about that.
Xfinity sponsored this covering up of the facts, go here and let them know how you feel about that.
Read the full transcript below to learn more.
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
8-4-20
9:17 AM
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Developing now, President Trump threatening to sue the state of Nevada after the governor there signed a bill allowing mail-in voting. The president making the legal threat after firing off a tweet calling Nevada's move a, quote, illegal late-night coup suggesting mail-in voting will make it impossible for Republicans to win in Nevada this November. The president then doubled down last night during a new interview we just talked about with Axios on HBO.
DONALD TRUMP: So we have a new phenomena. It's called mail-in voting. Where you send --
JONATHAN SWAN: New? It's been here since the Civil War.
RUHLE: At the same time, the battle over mail-in voting is playing out this morning in Michigan. The state that's holding its primary today and it is largely being viewed as a dry run for November. This is Michigan's first election cycle with what it calls no-excuse absentee voting. Our team of reporters is covering both of these developing stories and I want to go first to Dasha Burns in Michigan. Tell us about this no-excuse absentee voting. What does it mean, and how could it impact today's primary?
DASHA BURNS: Hi, Stephanie. That measure was passed in 2018. So in this cycle, any voter who wants to vote absentee can do so. You do not need an excuse. On top of that, the secretary of state here took the unprecedented step of issuing absentee ballot applications. Not ballots, applications to every voter in the state. Now that stirred more than a little controversy but it did happen and that means voters had one less step to take if they wanted to vote by mail. Those factors, combined with the pandemic, have led to a massive surge in absentee ballots issued here. Think about this. Here in Kent county, in the 2016 presidential race, around 70,000 absentee ballots were issued. In this August primary, more than 127,000 absentee ballots have been issued. That's a huge jump, and election officials tell me that forecasts a potentially astonishing number of absentee ballots come November. In the state of Michigan, election workers can't start counting those ballots until 7:00 A.M. On election day. Take a listen to what the county clerk here told me about what that might mean for when we actually hear election results out of Michigan.
LISA LYONS: In November, we could be waiting for days to have our final results reported. And so we just ask for patience and we have confidence in all of our local elected officials that they are equipped to do the job and do it well.
BURNS: She tells me she's also hoping for more funding to beef up those operations. They say they need more scanners, more election workers to try and speed up the process, but, still, it could be the end of election week or even later before we know who won Michigan in November. Stephanie?
RUHLE: Dasha, thank you. Let's go to NBC news senior political editor Mark Murray. President Trump blasting what he is calling a new phenomenon, mail-in voting, though he has voted absentee a number of times and saying there's too high a risk for fraud. He's vowing to sue Nevada over it. Can you please fact check this?
MARK MURRAY: Stephanie, whether you end up having absentee ballots or mail-in ballots, it's a distinction without a difference. When it comes to what actually has gone on in Nevada, the state's democratic governor signed legislation into law that mails ballots to all of the state's active voters. What the governor also ended up doing was providing early and in-person voting, just a minimum number, and also the state allowed them to do in this legislation, allow nonfamily members to engage in ballot collection. Republicans deride it as a ballot harvesting. Some of these are interesting political policies. But when the president says this is a coup, this was just legislation that the Democratic legislature and a Democratic governor signed into law. All trying to deal with how do you end up making sure that everyone can vote during a pandemic. This is a public policy challenge. Democrats have decided they want to be able to have everyone, the opportunity to get mail-in ballots. Republicans disagree. Maybe they want to actually say you should vote in person or have ballot applications mailed. But just fact-checking the president, he's absolutely wrong on the tweet he sent yesterday.
RUHLE: Okay then. Forgive my ignorance. If there is no evidence that mail-in voting leads to any widespread voter fraud, if the president is essentially saying, if everyone is given the opportunity to vote, Republicans won't win, how does that make any sense?
MURRAY: Yeah, it really hurts the credibility of an election that's now less than three months away. And as you mentioned, when it comes to actually incidents of fraud, when it comes to mail-in ballots, it's almost the political equivalent of being struck by lightning. It has existed in the past but it's so rare given the millions and tens of millions of ballots we see throughout this country, including states that have all mail-in voting procedures. And importantly in Nevada, Stephanie, that you end up having the state's primaries a couple of months ago where all voters who end up getting ballots mailed to them, they were able to mail them back, and the Republican secretary of state said that she could find no clear instances of fraud from that. So I do think it is kind of howling at the moon, but it certainly does, I think, add to a certain situation on the Republican president trying to cast -- make the election less credible.
RUHLE: The president of the united States does not want to create a scenario where everyone eligible to vote will be able to actually do so. Just think about that.
