CNN anchor Anderson Cooper on Monday criticized Republican former Rep. Scott Taylor’s “high school debate” strategy while trying to defend Donald Trump’s false claims about voter fraud.
On AC360, Taylor was pressed about Trump’s latest false declaration over the weekend about massive fraud in Pennsylvania regarding mail-in ballots.
“He’s lying about this in Pennsylvania. There’s no widespread election voter fraud. There’s no evidence of it in mail-in ballots. People just discount this. It’s like at this point it’s just, ‘Oh, this is what he does,’” Cooper said. “Do you think this is acceptable?”
Taylor, a one-term Virginia congressman beginning in early 2017, claimed that because “a lot” of people have concerns about elections, Trump’s argument should carry some weight.
“There are a lot of folks out there, literally millions of Americans who had a big problem with 2020 as well,” Taylor added.
One NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted in the weeks after the 2020 election showed that less than one quarter of Republicans accepted those results.
“Well I know,” Cooper interjected. “But factually, they don’t have any evidence, like courts have looked at it.”
“Because it’s promoted on a lot of networks and a lot of radio networks, just saying a lot of people feel this doesn’t make it true,” Cooper continued. “I think you know it’s not true, I assume, but there’s no evidence.”
Scott, after being challenged to defend his claim that “there are tons of irregularities in the 2020 election that never happened before,” pointed to procedural differences due to COVID—none of which resulted in widespread fraud that Trump has claimed.
“There are many people, including in my family, who had issues with the way 2020 was handled,” he insisted.
Cooper replied moments later: “There’s people who think the world is flat… That doesn’t make it real.
“Every time you start your argument with, ‘There are people who believe this,’ it weakens your argument,” Cooper told him later in the segment. “I mean, that’s like classic high school debate stuff.”
Taylor nonetheless maintained his position throughout the interview.
