Maria Bartiromo teamed up with Newt Gingrich to push the Big Lie in new, more insidious ways now that she’s being sued for $2.7 billion for pushing a previous version of the Big Lie.
Bartiromo and Fox are defendants in a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit (Fox faces a second billion-dollar lawsuit), for promoting bogus claims that voting technology companies rigged the election against Trump. Bartiromo didn’t let that stop her from continuing to promote the Big Lie, just with new allegations. But, hey, maybe as Jimmy Kimmel theorized, she’s still auditioning to be Donald Trump’s next wife.
Yesterday, Bartiromo let Fox contributor Newt Gingrich do the dirty work while she gave explicit approval to his unsupported allegations. Never mind that serial adulterer Gingrich is a known liar, cheat and hypocrite.
In Part 2 of her interview with Gingrich, Bartiromo got around to the latest iterations of the Big Lie. First, the two disinformers pretended that Texas’ soon-to-be-enacted voter suppression laws are a “push for free and fair elections.” Then, without actually saying the 2020 election was stolen, but only in states Biden won, Gingrich “merely” repeatedly suggested it.
BARTIROMO: Your reaction to now three states coming up with new rules around voting?
GINGRICH: Well, I think we learned in 2020 earlier that we have elections that are too -- too easy to steal.
And they're too -- for example, you can actually buy an official Georgia presidential ballot on eBay. And you can also buy a number of other states.
So, when they tell you they were controlling the ballots, it's just not true. This was a very open system. It was a system where people could cheat and did.
And without getting into an argument about how big the cheating was, it was large enough that every American should expect that they have the right to vote, they have the right to have their vote counted, they have the right for their vote to be held legally and accurately. And they shouldn't have their vote canceled by somebody who's cheating.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GINGRICH: And that's exactly what's been going on.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
Bartiromo played a clip of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton saying he “absolutely” is questioning the tally in Georgia. Not surprisingly, she failed to note that Paxton is currently under indictment for securities fraud, under investigation for abusing his office (his own staff blew the whistle) and is refusing to release texts and emails related to his attendance at the January 6 Trump rally just prior to the insurrection. But, hey, maybe Bartiromo just has a special spot in her heart for liars and cheats.
After the clip, Bartiromo said HR 1 has already passed the House - as if there's something sinister about a voting rights bill. Then she prompted Gingrich to attack Stacey Abrams by adding, “And, today, Stacey Abrams says she wants to run for president.”
Gingrich took the hint.
GINGRICH: Well, why not? I mean, she's -- she's already changed Georgia without ever being governor. She's intimidated Governor Kemp. She's intimidated the secretary of state. So, she's dominated Georgia, despite losing. And maybe she figures she will do the same thing. Of course, she will have to face off against Kamala Harris, who I think has her own ideas about who the first woman president should be.
Paxton is probably a bigger slime than Gingrich (a high bar), but Gingrich validated Paxton's bogus, unsupported claim that the Georgia vote was stolen – and the wannabe 4th Mrs. Donald Trump agreed:
GINGRICH: But what Ken just said is really important for people to understand. In a number of states, the Republicans were just plain outlawyered. The other side did a better job. They set the rules of the game. The rules of the game were designed to do exactly what he said, figure out how many votes the Republicans have, and then hold the ballots open until you can get enough votes to beat him.
And that's in -- every one of the states was really close that Trump lost, you had those kinds of shenanigans, and you had state law violated in every single one of those states.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GINGRICH: Now, in my mind, there's no question that those states were, in effect, stolen. That doesn't make the national media happy. But I think, as a historian, people are going to find that it's absolutely true.
Bartiromo changed the subject.
You can watch it below, from the April 9, 2021 Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo. The Big Lie starts at about 4:02.
And don’t forget, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch pay for this assault on democracy and truth.
By the time these results were made public, we were already deep into Fall 2001, after the point where the 9/11 attacks had happened. Gore once again chose not to make a big deal out of this, and most Americans are unaware this recount even occurred.
I note also that when the GOP was concerned that they were going to lose the Florida recount, they were making noises about recounting New Mexico because they felt they should have won that state. There was a bunch of angry Right Wing talk about how the voters of New Mexico had the right to have their voices heard. And then when Gore caved on everything, those same GOP voices became strangely silent about New Mexico… Guess they didn’t care that much about those voices after all.
In 2000, when the Florida recount was still underway, the Supreme Court stepped in to stop that and declare Bush the winner (to this day, I think they overstepped their authority). Gore decided that it would not be in the country’s interest to appeal that decision and he then gave a truly gracious concession address.
Although most Democrats are to this day convinced (as am I) that Gore had won, they limited themselves to a lot of grumbling, but no insurrections or threats of resorting to violence.
I watched part of the hearing and had to turn it off, I found it so upsetting. So not sure what he said. I have not had a chance to catch up on news since then.
Fox News and Gingrich don’t care about the facts. They don’t care how many AGs or Secretaries of State come out to reconfirm the facts. Their intention is to just keep the drumbeat going of their blatant lie. Just keep telling people that something was wrong, or something was in doubt, or something was “stolen”. And then 20 years later, they can play those lies as “facts”, since they’ve been repeated for 20 years. Just like they did with Hillary Clinton, and just like they’ve tried to do about pretty much every major historical occurrence for the past century.
It doesn’t matter to Fox News or Gingrich that the facts are clear about the 2020 Election. It doesn’t matter to them that there is no doubt that the election was fairly conducted and that Donald Trump was the loser. But they cannot admit that. So they double down like this.
If anything, conscientious voters should be sure to show up to vote in the same numbers for 2022 and 2024 that they did last year, because the angry Right Wingers will be out in force to erase them. And pushing lies like the nonsense about “election fraud” is but one prong of their strategy.
Old Will described the Republican Party perfectly 420 years ago:-
“Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed
Things rank and gross possess it merely.”
