Brianna Keilar Ripped Apart Trump's 'Deeply Cynical' Election Tweet

By Aliza Worthington — July 30, 2020

CNN's Brianna Keilar spent five entire minutes completely disassembling Trump's weak, transparent attempt to hold on to power with his suggestion to delay the federal election. Forget about the fact that the Constitution doesn't allow this to happen. Keilar went to town on what was truly behind this emotionally and educationally stunted attempt to delay the inevitable: Trump's removal from power and having to face consequences for his catastrophic failures and crimes against the nation.

First, Keilar tackled Trump's false insistence there is rampant voter fraud.

KEILAR: After being elected, despite losing the popular vote, he even created a voter fraud commission to try to prove his wasn't just one of the electoral college. Well, that commission was disbanded when they found nothing. The Washington Post reports that out of more than 135 million votes cast, there were a total of four documented cases of voter fraud. The think tank, Brookings, found that nearly one quarter of those 135 million votes cast in 2016 were mailed in. So now we hear president trump raising these doubts about the security of mail-in voting, even as he said absentee voting, which is also mail-in voting, is "good." So, let's look at the facts here.

Then, Keilar systematically dismantled the lies being spread that voting by mail is somehow less secure than in-person voting, citing the many measures in place to protect our individual ballots.

KEILAR: Millions of Americans vote by mail every year, and they do this without issue, and that's because there are multiple layers of protection. Everything from smart bar codes that track your ballot, to the ability to drop off your ballot personally into a secure mailbox, like a ballot box, so that you don't even have to use snail mail. In the history of this country, the presidential election has never been moved. Not during the Civil War, during which soldiers voted by mail. Not during the 1918 flu when almost 200,000 people, 200,000 Americans, died in October alone, just ahead of the midterm elections.

Even Trump's CDC recommends alternative methods of voting that "minimize direct contact and reduce crowd size at polling locations." Personally, I think it's hilarious that one of the reasons he's using to justify delaying the election is that he gives a sh*t about the safety of the people voting. Didn't he have the Tulsa Death Rally, and doesn't he refuse to wear a mask? Isn't he still pushing hydrochloroquine as a miracle cure (but go with god, Louie Gohmert...) but I'm veering off-topic a bit. Back to Keilar...

She then took apart Trump's senior administration, who both lie to Congress about the likelihood of foreign adversaries being able to print up fake ballots, and who hypocritically take part in the convenience of mail-in voting themselves. (Hi, Bill Barr, Alex Azar, Mike Pence, Wilbur Ross, and Kayleigh McEnany!)

Finally, she zeroed in on the wretched cynicism at play.

KEILAR: So is this about stopping mail-in voting? No. This isn't about stopping mail-in voting. This is about stopping voting. The harder it is to vote, the easier it is for Trump to win re-election. The more confusion there is around legitimacy of the result, even months before the election, the more people are likely to think, "Maybe the vote doesn't matter. Maybe there's no point in voting." It makes it easier for the president to question the outcome.

It is deeply cynical and nothing brings that into relief more than a day like this, as Americans are saying good-bye to Congressman John Lewis, whose life was dedicated to fighting efforts to make voting harder.

Keep doing what you're doing, Brianna Keilar. It's called journalism, and we love it.