On Monday's edition of CNN's "OutFront," anchor Erin Burnett broke down the new efforts by former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies to try to undermine the legitimacy of the California recall election result — before it has even happened.
"It boils down to if you lose an election, you didn't actually lose," said Burnett. "It was voter fraud. It was rigged, even when it wasn't. And the night before the recall election, the former president is stirring the pot with the very familiar message. Here he is. 'Does anybody believe the California recall election isn't rigged? Millions and millions of mail-in ballots will make this another giant election scam? No different but less blatant than the 2020 election scam.'"
Burnett then explained why these falsehoods are so nefarious.
"That's completely untrue. It's a bunch of lies," said Burnett. "There is really no other word for it, and dangerous lies at that. The leading Republican contender to replace Gavin Newsom, Larry Elder, is listening closely and sounding more Trump-like on this. Listen to this event captured by The Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel."
"We have lawyers all set up ready to go to file lawsuits. They're going to cheat, we know that," said Elder at the event.
"Just to be clear here, there was absolutely no talk of the recall being rigged from any of the people, you know, the Newt Gingriches, the Tucker Carlsons, none of them from Trump, none of them when they had the initial handling of the pandemic," said Burnett. "But when the polls shifted in Newsom's, Republicans went to the baseless claims that it was all going to be completely fraudulent."
She then did the math to show how it is very likely that Newsom will win the recall election if voter turnout is sufficiently high.
"Democrats have a two-to-one registration advantage in voting in California," she said. "Two-to-one! Democrats hold every single statewide office and, in fact, Democrats in California have not lost a statewide election in 15 years, and Joe Biden, who is in California and will be campaigning with Newsom tonight, won California with 64 percent of the vote. Okay? So the concept that if Elder does not win that it must be voter fraud is frankly ridiculous on the merit and math."
Watch below: