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Donald Trump called a 60 Minutes episode about election fraud "a joke" after the show debunked a conspiracy theory that he and his lawyers spread about the 2020 general election.
The Sunday episode of the CBS news program looked at a baseless theory pushed by Trump and supporters after the Republican lost the presidential election to Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
The theory, spread by Trump's lawyers, said vote-counting company Dominion Voting Systems had rigged the election and was backed by Venezuela, with its machine switching millions of votes from Trump to Biden in eight key battleground states.
Among the lawyers pushing the conspiracy theory were Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani. None of them showed any evidence for this claim. Trump has spread this conspiracy theory since November 12, 2020, just days after the election result was declared.
Nearly two years later, the former president continues to claim that the results of the election were not valid. Trump has also not backed up this claim with evidence. These claims, including the ones about Dominion, have been debunked by election authorities.
"'60 Minutes' is not a News Show, it is a Democrat propaganda machine. Their story last night on Election Fraud was a JOKE!" Trump said on his Truth Social platform on Monday.
"The evidence is massive, not to even mention that State Legislatures did not grant necessary approvals, the FBI paid people to, essentially, 'get Trump,' and then told Facebook and others that the Laptop from Hell was Russian disinformation, when they knew it was not - and much more. Barr, Krebs, and the rest of the RINO Establishment, should be ashamed of themselves!"
Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos said on 60 Minutes that irreparable damage has been done to his company and his staff as a result of the conspiracy theories from Trump's supporters.
"People have been put into danger. Their families have been put into danger. Their lives have been upended and all because of lies," Poulos said. "It was a very clear calculation that they knew they were lies. And they were repeating them and endorsing them."
"It's important to you people admit what they said was wrong?" 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper asked.
"It's important to me. It's important to all the people whose families have been impacted by this. Anderson, my kids still are not allowed to get any package from the front door until we verify that it's actually from a trusted sender," Poulos said.
Poulos said that the company, founded in Toronto, Canada, "absolutely" does not have any ties to Venezuela and that his company's system was not capable of adding votes that did not exist.
Dominion has filed eight lawsuits for more than $10 billion in damages against Fox News, as well as other conservative networks, corporations and individuals that parroted the conspiracy theory about his company.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's team for further comment.
About the writer
Jack Dutton is a Newsweek Reporter based in Cape Town, South Africa. His focus is reporting on global politics and ... Read more