Trump posted a 46-minute video to Facebook asserting baseless election fraud claims, and called it 'the most important speech I've ever made'

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Trump posted a 46-minute video to Facebook asserting baseless election fraud claims, and called it 'the most important speech I've ever made'
The video came one day after Bill Barr said the Justice Department had not found evidence of fraud that would change the election results.Patrick Semansky/Associated Press
  • President Trump released on Wednesday video of what he said might be "the most important speech" he's ever made.
  • The 46-minute speech was delivered to a camera, without an audience, and posted to Facebook. It was also almost totally divorced from reality.
  • During the speech, Trump repeated the unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud that he has made since the election, and which his attorneys and allies have tried without success to argue in court.
  • The posted came the day after the Department of Justice affirmed that it found no evidence of fraud that could change the election results.
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President Donald Trump delivered what he said might be "the most important speech" he's ever made. The 46-minute speech was delivered to a camera, without an audience, and posted to Facebook on Wednesday.

During the speech, the president repeated the baseless claims of "tremendous voter fraud" that he has repeated since losing the presidential election to Joe Biden.

His attorneys and allies have also tried to argue the claims in court, without success.

Facebook added a disclaimer to the video, which said that "voter fraud is extremely rare," with a link to its voting information page, which says that Biden won.

The video came one day after Attorney General Bill Barr, usually a staunch defender of Trump, broke with the president to say that his Department of Justice had not found evidence of fraud that could change the results.

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Trump has refused to accept the election results and has not conceded to Biden, instead pursuing legal challenges and pushing many baseless fraud claims.

His remarks posted Wednesday were the most extensive he has given about the election. They were recorded in the White House in the Diplomatic Reception Room sometime last week, sources told The New York Times.

In the video, Trump called his loss "statistically impossible" because many Republicans down ballot won their races. (The real explanation for this is that some voters did indeed vote for local Republicans but not the president.)

He also argued that when "corrupt" votes are thrown out, "I very easily win." His legal team has not been able to identify or overturn votes in court.

The president also shared a 2-minute version of the speech on Twitter. The social media platform very quickly added a label saying, "This claim about election fraud is disputed."

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Some Republicans have spoken out against Trump's baseless election fraud claims. On Tuesday, a Georgia election official tore into the president, accusing him of "inspiring potential acts of violence."

"It has all gone too far," Gabriel Sterling, a Republican election official, said.

In response to the video Trump shared on Twitter, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, tweeted at the president: "Time to delete your account."

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