Rudy Giuliani Falsely Claims Trump's “Rigged” Comments Referred To “Unfair Media Coverage”

Trump Explicitly Said He Thought Election Would Be Rigged Through Voter Fraud

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

Donald Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani tried to deflect criticism of Trump’s claim that the presidential election could be “rigged” by claiming that the GOP nominee had actually been “talking about the unfair media coverage that Republicans get.” In fact, Trump has specifically said that he was referring to the myth that the absence of voter ID laws would lead to widespread voter fraud. In reality, in-person voter fraud is extremely rare. From the August 7 edition of ABC’s This Week:

MARTHA RADDATZ (HOST): Donald Trump has been raising questions about whether this election could be rigged. You've lost elections in the past and never really said anything like that. Is that an appropriate thing for him to be saying? Do you believe this election could be rigged?

RUDY GIULIANI: I think what he's talking about is the very unfair media coverage that Republicans get. I know all of those -- of you in the media don't believe this, but you really don't treat us the same way. The allegations by Mrs. Smith, a Gold Star mother about Hillary Clinton lying to her got about one-tenth of the coverage that the Khan situation got. Hillary's situation in which the FBI in an extraordinary memo found her to be extremely careless in handling top security information. My goodness, I wouldn't hire a person as an assistant U.S. Attorney if that was in their FBI background. We're going to make her president of the United States? Nobody raises that. Nobody makes a very big deal about that. That's not on the news for five days, six days. So I think what Donald Trump is reflecting is and know the media always discounts this, because you don't like to get criticized, but you don't treat us the same way that you treat Democrats.