CNBC anchor Joe Kernen laughed in President Donald Trump’s face when Trump ranted about a “rigged” election and fired off a devastating fact-check in between chuckles.
On Monday’s edition of CNBC’s Squawk Box, Trump called in for a lengthy interview with the show’s co-hosts. But when Trump punctuated one segment with his false claim of a “rigged” 2020 election, Kernen — who has long been openly supportive of Trump — could not suppress a laugh as he torpedoed the assertion.
But even as Kernen fact-checked him, Trump kept insisting on the lie:
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But what they did in the election, what they in the last election, but it was too big to rig, but what they did in the 2020 election is grotesque. I mean, that was a rigged election, a hundred percent. We’ll be right back. I’ll go back to rigging again, where you can use it because everyone knows. You know what? A year ago you would have been upset if I said it. Today it’s different. I say it all the time. It was a rigged election. A hundred percent rigged.JOE KERNEN: (LAUGHS) We can’t relitigate that. We can’t relitigate that here.PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And I’m sure (inaudible).JOE KERNEN: You know, independent sources, even your Justice Department, but then I’m bringing up Bill Barr, but even they
decided that there wasn’t, there were things that happened, but nothing that would have swayed it.PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, they were wrong! And Bill Barr was wrong, and Bill Bar didn’t investigate, and he should have. And why didn’t Bill Barr give the… Why didn’t he give the Dermer report? Why didn’t he give that report, the stuff that’s in there that’s all the stuff is coming out of it? Why didn’t he give it earlier? I mean, you know, why did it take so long to do it? And why did he give, why didn’t they announce it earlier because it morphed… What happened is it morphed into the Biden administration and the Biden Administration buried it. So, you know, it’s too bad.
Trump has spent years falsely claiming that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him and/or “stolen” from him, despite the fact that Biden defeated Trump in an electoral landslide that has been reaffirmed over and over by state officials from Trump’s own party and dozens of court decisions — and despite consistent mockery even from some allies.
Watch above via CNBC’s Squawk Box.