‘Assault on Our Democracy’: Chuck Todd, George Stephanopoulos Open Shows Calling Out Trump’s Election Attacks, ‘Outright Lies’

Two of the major Sunday shows opened with the anchors calling out President Donald Trump and his legal team for attacks on American democracy.

On Meet the Press, Chuck Todd started off by saying that at first, “It was easy to dismiss President Trump’s reality-denial as working his base, or just a tantrum, or some sort of strategy for his post-presidency strategy.”

“But now his antics look less like a fit of pique than an assault on our democracy,” he said.

Todd brought up how the Trump team has been pressuring Republican state legislatures to “overturn the election and choose pro-Trump electors instead” while the top lawyers are pushing baseless and off-the-walls conspiracy theories about a massive rigged election.

he picked up in particular on Trump’s explicit message to “Court and/or Legislatures” on Twitter Saturday night to have the “COURAGE” to do the right thing, while again baselessly claiming there’s “hundreds of thousands” of fraudulent votes that would somehow overturn the election results.

Meanwhile, on This Week, George Stephanopoulos started the program saying, “We may not be surprised, but we should still be shocked.”

“Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump. And by recent standards it wasn’t all that close,” Stephanopoulos said. “Faced with those facts, the president and his allies have taken their baseless claims of voter fraud to court. They’ve lost 34 times.”

He brought up the most recent court failure, with a Pennsylvania judge rejecting their case and saying that they used “strained legal arguments and speculative accusations.”

“Defeated in court, the Trump team is telling outright lies in television interviews and press conferences, forums where you don’t face legal sanctions for making false, frilovous, and fantastical charges,” Stephanopoulos continued.

He also noted Trump’s public calls for state officials “to simply overturn the will of the voters.”

“This assault on our election will not change the outcome,” Stephanopoulos told viewers. “Joe Biden will take the oath of office, become America’s 46th president at 12 noon on January 20th. Donald Trump will leave the White House some time before then. But how much damage will he do to our democracy on the way out?”

You can watch above, via NBC and ABC.

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