Dinesh D'Souza admits his debunked election denial film 2000 Mules included “inaccurate information”

CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan noted that the movie “still percolates through the MAGA universe … to try and prove the bogus conspiracy theories from 2020”

Written by Alex Kaplan

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Two and a half years after releasing 2000 Mules, right-wing filmmaker and Trump pardon recipient Dinesh D’Douza has backtracked on portions of his debunked conspiracy theory film, which CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan reported is still used by “the MAGA universe … as proof that people point to to try and prove the bogus conspiracy theories” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

President-elect Donald Trump and his allies in right-wing media widely promoted 2000 Mules after it was released in May 2022, despite its claims about ballot fraud being repeatedly debunked. The film spread across social media, received days of airtime on OAN, was mentioned in dozens of articles on The Gateway Pundit, and was pushed by conservative media figures including Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk.

Salem Media, the right-wing media conglomerate that distributed 2000 Mules, retracted and apologized for the film in May in the midst of settling a lawsuit with a Georgia voter who was falsely depicted as committing voter fraud in the film. Now D’Souza — who was also sued by the Georgia voter — has joined Salem in apologizing for the film. On December 1, he released a statement backtracking from “inaccurate information” in 2000 Mules and announcing, “We recently learned that surveillance videos used in the film may not have actually been correlated with the geolocation data.” 

True the Vote, an election denial organization that provided the material for the film and has ties to the QAnon conspiracy theory movement, responded to D’Souza’s statement, calling it “materially inaccurate” and releasing its own “clarification” that said that “the central premise of ‘2000 Mules’, as identified and validated by True the Vote’s (TTV) research, remains accurate.” (True the Vote also pushed back on Salem Media’s statement in May, suggesting that the company had caved due to shareholder and advertiser pressure.)

On December 3, CNN’s Jim Acosta and Donie O’Sullivan reported on D’Souza’s admissions about the film.

From the December 3, 2024, edition of CNN's CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta

JIM ACOSTA (HOST): A far-right activist is now admitting some of the claims in his 2020 election conspiracy movie were wrong. Dinesh D’Souza wrote and directed 2000 Mules, a movie that falsely claims so-called “mules” were stuffing voter drop boxes with ballots. But now he’s pulling back on some of those allegations and apologizing to one man in particular — [a] Georgia man who was portrayed this way in the film.

(VIDEO BEGINS)

DINESH D’SOUZA: What you are seeing is a crime. These are fraudulent votes. 

(VIDEO ENDS)

ACOSTA: That man later sued D’Souza, saying the bogus claim had severely damaged his reputation and put his family in danger. In a statement, D’Souza apologizes to the voter and writes, “I now understand that the surveillance videos used in the film were characterized on the basis of inaccurate information provided to me and my team. If I had known then that the videos were not linked to geolocation data, I would have clarified this and produced and edited this film differently.” CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan joins me now from West Palm Beach, Florida. 

Donie, Trump and his allies have repeatedly used this movie to boost their false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. I remember they held screenings, they held up Dinesh D'Souza in this film as like, “Aha, we have proof. Here it is.” And then it turns out we find out after the 2024 election, sorry guys, nothing to this here, or a lot of this isn’t what meets the eye.

DONIE O’SULLIVAN (CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT): Yeah, Jim, I mean, this was held up really as the holy grail, as the absolute proof of all those bogus election lies in 2020. The movie actually premiered right by here, at Mar-a-Lago back in 2022, where Trump himself attended, and all the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and others. And look, for those of your audience, Jim, who haven’t had the pleasure of watching this so-called documentary: In short, it used mangled data from geolocation from people's cell phones, along with video surveillance footage, to try and claim that people who were dropping off ballots at voter drop box locations across the country, that they were, some of them were so-called “mules,” people who were stuffing them with hundreds of ballots or many ballots in a way to steal the election. And nobody’s been able to stand up the claims in this movie. Multiple investigations across the country, election officials in Georgia, of course, as you mentioned, nobody’s been able to stand it up. It is bogus. 

But I’ve got to say, I mean, even up until, up to this day two and a half years later, after that movie was released, I still hear it all the time. It is still percolates through the MAGA universe as something, as proof that people point to to try and prove the bogus conspiracy theories from 2020.

ACOSTA: Yeah, and Dinesh D’Souza should be ashamed of himself, but I assume he's not. To be clear, is he denouncing the entire premise of this film? Is he pulling the whole thing back?

O’SULLIVAN: No. It’s a very — 

ACOSTA: Shocker. 

O’SULLIVAN: — specific apology.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

O’SULLIVAN: This gentleman, the gentleman in Georgia who was wrongly accused — as you saw in the clip you played there — of doing something nefarious when he was just voting, he has brought this lawsuit. And Salem Media Group, which runs a lot of right-wing talk radio, had to apologize earlier in the year because they were distributing this film. So this apology from D’Souza comes, you know, it also comes — by the way, he posted it last week during a holiday weekend. But he says in that statement that he stands by the other bogus claims that are made in this movie. I don't think it's going to be the last we’ll be hearing of this, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yeah, it doesn’t sound like it. Alright. All I can do is shake my head. Donie O’Sullivan, we’ve been — you and I have been reporting on this disinformation for years now. The truth is starting to come out about the untruths.