CNBC anchor Shepard Smith cut off the broadcast of President Trump’s press conference Thursday to fact-check a series of his claims on the election.
Smith, who formerly worked for Fox News, read the president’s statements in the conference and rebutted or clarified each remark. He did not continue airing the press conference.
“Well, we’re interrupting this because what the president of the United States is saying, in large part, is absolutely untrue. He began — and we’re not going to allow it to keep going. Because it’s not true,” Smith said.
“He began with, ‘There were legal votes, and if they only count the legal votes, I easily win. If they count the illegal votes, they’re trying to steal the election.’ There is not a scintilla of evidence that this is true. None. There’s only words here. No truth,” Smith said, later criticizing the president’s claims that polls were wrong to suppress voter turnout and that there was a “red wave.”
“There is no evidence of any kind that this has happened, and he’s provided none. He said that there is actually a red wave in this election. That is categorically false,” Smith said.
Smith also said there’s “no evidence” to support election interference. Officials have not presented evidence of domestic election interference. However, intelligence officials established earlier in 2020 that China, Iran, and Russia were continuing foreign election interference campaigns in the U.S. elections.
As of Wednesday morning, federal officials and election observers said there is also no evidence of foreign entities hacking the election process.
