CNN Reporters Can Barely Contain Smiles During Brutal Fact-Check of Trump’s Claim He Sent Feds to Help DeSantis
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins and correspondent Paula Reid couldn’t contain smiles as they fact-checked former President Donald Trump’s claim he sent federal authorities to Florida to rescue Ron DeSantis from defeat in 2018.
Trump has been lashing out wildly after midterm Election Night results that have widely been seen as a Trump-fueled disappointment for Republicans and have been followed by the ostentatious kicking-around of Trump by members of his own party.
Trump’s attacks have been particularly focused on DeSantis, who is the subject of the claim that “I sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys, and the ballot theft immediately ended, just prior to them running out of the votes necessary to win. I stopped his Election from being stolen.”
On Friday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, a clearly amused Collins summarized Trump’s claim and tossed to an equally-amused Reid for a brutal fact-check:
KAITLAN COLLINS: Because there is a claim that Trump is making about saving Florida Governor Ron DeSantis his campaign in 2018. He talked about sending in federal agency, federal agents after that election was conducted. We have CNN’s Paula Reid, who is live in Washington. Paula, I know there’s a lot going on in between Trump going after DeSantis when it comes to many points. But what about this claim about what happened in 2018 and the role he played as president specifically?
PAULA REID: Well, good morning, Kaitlan. So as we know, former President Trump, he continues to attack DeSantis in the wake of the GOP’s poor midterm performance and suggestions that the Florida governor should be the one to lead the party heading into 2024. Now, in a lengthy social media post last night, Trump claimed that he leveraged federal law enforcement to stop DeSantis from losing his 2018 race for governor.
Trump wrote “When votes were being stolen by the corrupt election process in Broward County and Ron was going down 10,000 votes a day, along with now Senator Rick Scott, I send in the FBI and the US attorneys and the ballot theft immediately ended. Just prior to them running out of the votes necessary to win, I stopped this election from being stolen.”
Now, this is, of course, just the latest iteration of a claim that Trump has made many times before about elections being stolen, even in the absence of any evidence. But I do want to provide some context for what was happening in that 2018 race. In November 2018, Governor Rick Scott, the Republican nominee for Senate, accused two of the state’s largest counties of fraud. Trump joined in, tweeting at the time. “Don’t worry, Florida, I am sending much better lawyers to expose the fraud.”
Now, Scott and then-Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a very close ally of the former president, called on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate. They did. And that 18-month investigation found no evidence of widespread fraud.
Now, as for Trump’s claim that he sent in federal law enforcement agents, well, we have reached out to the current Justice Department and FBI, as well as multiple officials who were at the Trump Justice Department in 2018. But so far, there’s nothing we have seen to indicate that former President Trump did attempt to leverage federal law enforcement to help Republicans in 2018. Kaitlan.
KAITLAN COLLINS: Paula, thanks for that fact check.
Watch above via CNN This Morning.
