Chris Cuomo Repeatedly Slaps Down ‘Widespread Fraud’ Claims by Schlapp: ‘You Really Want the Conservative Movement to Be Made on the Back of a Lie?’

Nearly four months after the 2020 election, the chair of the American Conservative Union — which hosts the high-profile CPAC event later this week — continued to push false and misleading election fraud claims in solidarity with Donald Trump’s “big lie” narrative.

In a lengthy, running verbal battle, ACU chair Matt Schlapp continually tried to perpetuate these same, debunked claims and CNN host Chris Cuomo repeatedly stepped in to correct and shoot down the lies and misinformation.

During his Monday night show, Cuomo began by asking Schlapp to answer for hosting Trump at his Florida confab this coming weekend, saying that giving the former president such a platform at CPAC is “tacitly endorsing his election farce.”

“I don’t known what that means,” Schlapp responded.

“Well, he lied about the election being a fraud, and you having him there and giving him a platform seems to be your acknowledgment of the same,” Cuomo explained.

Schlapp then tried to claim that several states or counties did not follow their prescribed election laws, which Cuomo quickly pushed back on.

“I said it is not true that any state decided that it was doing something wrong,” Cuomo clarified. “And states get to decide. And it was adjudicated. You just don’t like that you lost in the state. You don’t like that the Supreme Court refused to see any merit to your claims. You don’t like that people voted in places where they didn’t live and the numbers were lower than you suggested. You don’t like those things but they’re true.”

Schlapp quickly pivoted to concerns about double voting and voting in multiple states.

“You had me on the show and you’re telilng me that saying there was widespread illegal voting is false,” Schlapp complained. “And I’m trying to explain to you that, for instance, what they did in the state of Georgia when they had an illegal consent decree to not verify the signatures of mail-in ballots… That means you have no security on the ballot that was mailed out without unsolicited vast mail-in ballots. They were returned with no security.”

That is false. In fact, an AP fact-check explicitly debunked the claim — repeatedly made by Trump as well — that Georgia election officials were unable to verify the signatures on absentee ballots because of a consent decree. In addition, Georgia election investigators also conducted a hand recount audit of absentee ballots in one suburban Atlanta country, matching signatures to ballots, and did not find a single fraudulent vote out of more than 15,000 tested.

“You’re making a straw man argument. It’s a boogeyman argument,” Cuomo said, breaking into the crosstalk. “There is no proof of rampant fraud. Nobody is saying the process is perfect. You lost.”

“Now you’re going to keep that going — [Rep.] Steve Scalise the other day on TV,” the CNN host added, alluding to the House Minority Whip’s similarly false claims about states not following their own election laws on ABC’s This Week. “You want the conservative movement to be made on the back of a lie about the election?”

Schlapp did acknowledge “Joe Biden is my president” but then suggested voter fraud was more rampant that it appears — by referencing a Republican candidate who went to jail for it after the 2018 election.

“It can’t just be Republicans that commit voter fraud,” Schlapp then claimed. “When voter fraud occurs, no matter…”

“No, but you need to have proof, Matt,” Cuomo interjected.

At that, the show descended into constant interruptions, with Schlapp claiming he did have proof and Cuomo pointing out that none has been shown.

“Matt, why do you ignore that dozens of lawsuits failed on this?” Cuomo pressed. “Why ignore it?”

“You’re right. They did fail,” Schlapp conceded before making an even more desperate argument. “But guess what. You know this. You’re a good lawyer. Just because you fail in court doesn’t mean you don’t have a good case. It means you lost in court, and the fact remains that you can say it wasn’t enough voter fraud.”

“If you want to make things better, make them better. I’m telling you these arguments are making things worse,” Cuomo added, moments later, almost pleading with Schlapp to stop lying and misleading.

“Chris, Chris, there was widespread voter fraud in the last election in a bipartisan sense,” Schlapp baselessly reiterated.

“These are your officials in Georgia, From your party who said there was no fraud here, stap saying it, you’re going to get us hurt, and then you did,” Cuomo shot back.

Watch the video above, via CNN.