The Poynter Institute Menu Donate State Editions * California * Florida * Iowa * Michigan * New Hampshire * New York * North Carolina * Pennsylvania * Texas * West Virginia * Wisconsin Issues * All Issues * Online hoaxes * Coronavirus * Health Care * Immigration * Extremism * Taxes * Marijuana * Environment * Crime * Guns * Foreign Policy * LGBTQ+ People * Joe Biden * Kamala Harris * Donald Trump * Mitch McConnell * Hakeem Jeffries * Ron DeSantis Media * PunditFact * Tucker Carlson * Sean Hannity * Rachel Maddow * Bloggers * PolitiFact Videos Campaigns * 2024 Elections Truth-o-Meter * True * Mostly True * Half True * Mostly False * False * Pants on Fire Promises * Biden Promise Tracker * Trump-O-Meter * Obameter * Latest Promises About Us * Our Process * Our Staff * En Español * Who pays for PolitiFact? * Advertise with Us * Suggest a Fact-check * Corrections and Updates * Newsletters Donate #### Follow us The Facts Newsletter Sign up English Español ### Get PolitiFact in your inbox. * Weekly Email Newsletter * Daily Email Newsletter Your Email Address Sign Up # Fact-checking Trump’s whopper-laden interview with Maria Bartiromo * National * Elections * Coronavirus ![\\"President](\\" President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Nov. 29, 2020, after stepping off Marine One. (AP/Semansky) ![\\"Bill](\\" By Bill McCarthy November 30, 2020 ![\\"Amy](\\" By Amy Sherman November 30, 2020 #### If Your Time is short * Trump repeated his claims that the election was rigged and a fraud, although federal officials have called the election secure. * Judges have rejected the Trump campaign’s lawsuits alleging fraud and wrongdoing in the counting of ballots. * Trump continued his false attacks on voting by mail and suggested that ballot “dumps” changed the outcome. This ignores how election officials routinely tabulate votes. President Donald Trump repeated his false claims that the election was \"rigged\" and characterized mail-in ballots as a \"disaster\" in an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. Bartiromo allowed him to make his case without challenging him on his lack of proof. \"We won the election easily,\" Trump said Nov. 29 in an interview that aired over 45 minutes. \"There\'s no way Joe Biden got 80 million votes.\" Trump lost the election to Biden, who received slightly more than 80 million votes and 306 electoral votes. There is zero evidence of widespread fraud or election rigging. In case after case nationwide, judges have rejected arguments by Trump’s legal team alleging fraud or wrongdoing in the counting of ballots. \"Calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,\" wrote Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, in an opinion in a Pennsylvania case before the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Overall, Trump’s interview with Bartiromo was dominated by the same baseless claims Trump has clung to for weeks. Some of his statements were vague, while others were simply wrong. As Bartiromo didn’t fact-check his claims, PolitiFact will. We emailed spokespersons for the Trump campaign and did not get a reply. > \"We have affidavits from many people talking about what went on with > machines. They had glitches. …. we had glitches where they moved thousands > of votes from my account to Biden\'s account.\" Elections are not error-free and glitches can occur, but there is no proof that any were widespread and involved shifting thousands of votes from Trump to Biden. \"There is no evidence whatsoever of any such ‘glitches’ that would shift votes from one candidate to another that would not have been trapped by an examination of the paper ballots of record,\" said Gregory Miller, co-founder of OSET Institute, a nonprofit that studies voting infrastructure. \"Something like this, if possible would have been detectable.\" One frequently shared claim about voting machine \"glitches\" stemmed from Antrim County, Mich. The day after the Nov. 3 election, the county appeared to have swung to Biden by about 3,000 votes. On Nov. 5, county officials changed their totals to show a win by President Donald Trump by about 2,500 votes. The Michigan secretary of state’s office reported on the incident and said it came down to human error by the county clerk, not a failure in the underlying system. The correct totals showed Biden won. > \"And they did these massive dumps of votes. And, all of a sudden, I went > from winning by a lot to losing by a little.\" This is False. There are no nefarious or illegal \"dumps\" of votes. Leads in the vote count varied in the hours and days after the polls closed largely because of the normal but time-consuming process of tabulating mail-in votes. It wasn’t because Democrats or election officials were doing something improper. The trend wasn’t a surprise. Officials warned for months before Election Day that one of the consequences of the heavy reliance on mail balloting during the pandemic would be that they take longer to count. Many Democrats chose to vote by mail or through drop boxes, while many of Trump’s supporters decided to vote at the polls after Trump himself repeatedly discouraged voting by mail. Different states and counties have different rules for what ballots were tabulated first. > \"There are a lot of dead people that so-called voted in this election. But > dead people were, in some cases, in many, many cases, thousands of cases, > voted, but, also, dead people made application to vote.\" Trump is wrong to suggest that thousands of dead people voted. Despite widespread claims that dead voters cast ballots including in Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan, none stack up. Similar claims during the primary season were baseless too. The fact that dead people remain on voter rolls nationwide does not itself equal fraudulent voting — it’s only a crime if someone then fills out a ballot in the name of a dead voter and sends it in. > \"Joe Biden did not get 80 million votes.\" Trump is wrong. Biden got slightly more than 80 million votes. > \"They weren\'t allowed to have poll watchers.\" This is Pants on Fire. Trump’s repeated claim that Republican election observers were barred from watching the ballot counting in major Democratic cities such as Philadelphia and Detroit has been contradicted by photo evidence, statements from local officials and Trump’s own campaign lawyers in court. > \"There were a lot of ballots where it was just Biden on top. … They say > that I was doing so much better than they thought that they panicked, and > they started just doing ballot after ballot very quickly and just checking > the Biden name on top.\" This is misleading. Trump is echoing a previous statement by former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell that at least \"450,000 ballots in the key states that miraculously only have a mark for Joe Biden on them, and no other candidate.\" This omits the context that undervoting is a common practice where voters mark their choice for one race but skip making selections in other races. It occurs in every election. \"Importantly, roll off happens in both parties,\" said Barry C. Burden, University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist. \"Some Biden voters will have skipped down ballot races and so will some Trump voters.\" We could not confirm Powell’s figure, but it does seem in line with the difference between the numbers of total votes cast in the presidential race and those cast in the down ballot House races in those states. We don’t see evidence that all of these votes were for Biden, however. > \"Joe Biden did not get 16 million more votes than Barack Hussein Obama. He > didn\'t get it. Joe Biden did not get 14 million more votes than Hillary > Clinton.\" Trump is wrong. Biden received slightly more than 80 million votes. Obama received nearly 69.5 million votes in 2008 and about 65.9 million in 2012. Clinton got about 65.8 million in 2016. Interest in this year’s election was extraordinarily high, and both sides did their best to turnout as many voters as they could. > \"The votes in Dominion, they say, are counted in foreign countries.\" This is wrong, experts said. All ballots were counted in the U.S. \"All votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America. Period,\" said Christopher Krebs, the former Department of Homeland Security official leading the agency’s election security efforts. Krebs was fired after debunking Trump’s false fraud claims. A Dominion spokesperson pointed to Krebs’s comments, which came in a recent interview with CBS’s \"60 Minutes,\" and also to a company webpage devoted to debunking misinformation. The page says servers that run Dominion software are located in local election offices. \"Votes are not processed outside the United States,\" it says. Dominion was founded in 2003 and has headquarters in Denver and Toronto. Its technology is used to administer elections in 28 states, including some states that went for Trump. > \"There are many mailmen that are in big trouble right now for selling > ballots, getting rid of ballots.\" PolitiFact found no evidence to support Trump’s claim alleging fraud by \"many mailmen.\" Trump may be repeating in broad terms a specific allegation he made in September related to a postal worker in West Virginia. As PolitiFact reported, the worker was charged for altering five absentee ballot requests, not ballots themselves. No money was involved. News reports and Justice Department press releases have detailed some isolated incidents where postal workers were charged for throwing out or delaying the delivery of blank absentee ballots that elections offices mailed to voters. We found no evidence of anything widespread. PolitiFact has debunked other allegations of malpractice by postal workers. One allegation, that the service failed to deliver 27% of South Florida ballots, received a Pants on Fire rating. The U.S. Postal Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment. > \"Many ballots with the name Trump on (them) were thrown out … They found > ballots in a river with the name Trump on from the military. They were > signed, and they were floating in a river. They found ballots under rocks > that had the name Trump on.\" Trump is wrongly repeating misinformation PolitiFact and other fact-checkers have debunked. There is no evidence that ballots cast for Trump were thrown out — in a river or elsewhere. In September, trays of mail were found in a ditch in Wisconsin. But there was no river involved, and a state election official said the mail did not include any Wisconsin ballots. Similarly inaccurate claims about thrown out or destroyed ballots include: * The False claim that a video, retweeted by Donald Trump Jr., showed an election worker destroying Trump ballots. The video was created as a prank. * The False claim that ballots for Trump were discovered in a Georgia dumpster. They weren’t, according to the county’s Republican sheriff. * The False claim that thousands of military ballots were found in the trash in Wisconsin. State election officials called this claim inaccurate. > The vaccines \"are going to be distributed in two weeks.\" This is exaggerated. There will not be widespread vaccination in December. Pfizer submitted an application to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization on Nov. 20, while Moderna announced on Nov. 30 that it plans to apply for authorization. Federal officials have set a goal of distributing an initial 40 million doses by the end of the year. The first doses will be distributed to key essential workers, such as those who work in hospitals. The vaccines require two doses, weeks apart. Dr. Anthony Fauci told NPR on Nov. 17 that it will take months for the general public to get the vaccine. \"By the time you get to, let\'s say, the end of April, the beginning of May, June, July, as we get into the second quarter, it\'ll be much more likely that you\'ll have, quote, \'the general population\' that\'s not on the priority list will be able to get vaccinated,\" he said. Children may have to wait several months to get vaccinated because vaccine trials on children so far have been limited. Sign Up For Our Weekly Newsletter ### Our Sources Factba.se, \"Maria Bartiromo Interviews Donald Trump on Fox News,\" Nov. 29, 2020 U.S. Election Atlas, \"United States Presidential Election Results,\" accessed Nov. 30, 2020 Various Justice Department press releases, accessed Nov. 30, 2020 The Washington Post, \"Trump lashes out as former top DHS official reasserts that election was ‘secure,\'\" Nov. 30, 2020 Dominion Voting Systems, \"Setting the Record Straight: Facts & Rumors,\" Nov. 25, 2020 USA Today, \"Fact check: Post about stolen – and returned – Arizona ballots lacks context,\" Nov. 11, 2020 The Associated Press, \"Ex-postal worker charged with tossing absentee ballots,\" Oct. 27, 2020 The New York Times, \"A New Jersey postal worker was arrested after he threw away nearly 100 blank ballots, prosecutors say,\" Oct. 7, 2020 The Associated Press, \"W.Va. official refutes Trump claim about ballot fraud,\" Sept. 30, 2020 U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Opinion, Nov. 27, 2020 NPR, Former Georgia Gubernatorial Candidate On A Push For Voter Turnout, Nov. 2, 2020 New York Times, Presidential Election Results: Biden Wins, Nov. 30, 2020 Pfizer, Tweet, Nov. 20, 2020 Moderna, Tweet, Nov. 30, 2020 NPR, Fauci: Vaccine Results Are \'Important Advance,\' But Virus Precautions Are Still Vital, Nov. 17, 2020 PolitiFact, \"Rudy Giuliani, Trump legal team push conspiracy theories, baseless claims about 2020 election,\" Nov. 20, 2020 PolitiFact, Giuliani cites affidavit with crucial errors in press conference, Nov. 20, 2020 PolitiFact, \"Fact-checking false claims about the 2020 election,\" Nov. 19, 2020 PolitiFact, \"Trump’s wrong claim that election observers were barred in Pennsylvania, Michigan,\" Nov. 12, 2020 PolitiFact, Trump supporters falsely tie Nancy Pelosi to broader election misfire scheme, Nov. 9, 2020 PolitiFact, List does not show over 14,000 dead people cast ballots in Michigan’s Wayne County, Nov. 6, 2020 PolitiFact, \"Allegations of USPS election fraud in Michigan don’t hold up,\" Nov. 5, 2020 PolitiFact, \"Dead voters on Detroit’s voter rolls, including person born in 1823? That post is outdated,\", Nov. 5, 2020 PolitiFact, No, President Trump, ‘ballot dumps’ in key states were not a magical surprise, Nov. 4, 2020 PolitiFact, \"Trump whiffs describing Wisconsin ballot case,\" Oct. 9, 2020 Email interview, Gregory Miller, co-founder of OSET Institute, a nonprofit that studies voting infrastructure, Nov. 30, 2020 Email interview, J. Alex Halderman, Professor, Computer Science and Engineering Director, Center for Computer Security and Society, University of Michigan, Nov. 30, 2020 Email interview, Tina Jagerson, FBI spokesperson, Nov. 30, 2020 Email interview, Michael R. Fraser, CEO of Association of State and Territorial Health officials, Nov. 30, 2020 Email interview, Barry C. Burden, political science professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Nov. 30, 2020 Email interview, Kay Stimson, spokesperson for Dominion Voting Systems, Nov. 30, 2020 ## Browse the Truth-O-Meter ### More by Bill McCarthy ![](\\" ![](\\" TikTok posts stated on July 19, 2022 in a TikTok post: An image shows Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in front of a cross with a figurine of former President Donald Trump on it. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • July 21, 2022 ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/322c808c00e73c217d17772ddd5a0eb5.jpg\\") ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/8b142c91ebe468a84a192e6df2b7b994.jpg\\") Instagram posts stated on July 19, 2022 in an Instagram post: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was “faking being arrested” during an abortion- rights protest outside the Supreme Court. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • July 20, 2022 ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on July 15, 2022 in a Facebook post: \"Antifa was already inside the Capitol with floor plans dressed as Trump supporters\" on Jan. 6, 2021, proving the attack “was 100% a setup.\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • July 19, 2022 ![](\\" ![](\\" Viral image stated on July 12, 2022 in a viral image: An image shows an “all aboard the Trump train” truck crashed into a bridge. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • July 15, 2022 ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/322c808c00e73c217d17772ddd5a0eb5.jpg\\") ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/8b142c91ebe468a84a192e6df2b7b994.jpg\\") Instagram posts stated on July 12, 2022 in Instagram posts: Actor Tom Holland is “confirmed to have died.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • July 14, 2022 ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on July 11, 2022 in Facebook posts: Images from Hunter Biden’s laptop show Joe Biden naked with a young girl. ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" pants-fire.jpg\\") By Bill McCarthy • July 13, 2022 ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/322c808c00e73c217d17772ddd5a0eb5.jpg\\") ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/8b142c91ebe468a84a192e6df2b7b994.jpg\\") Instagram posts stated on July 10, 2022 in an Instagram post: Shinzo Abe was assassinated because he “didn’t mandate vaccines, sent 1.6 million doses back and gave citizens ivermectin.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • July 11, 2022 ![](\\" black/4590875651af69b2c789ceab409664dd.jpg\\") ![](\\" black/72988380e8c8bd188dc360d11552e4a0.jpg\\") X posts stated on July 7, 2022 in in tweets: An image shows that “following his resignation, Boris Johnson has escaped to the sea.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • July 8, 2022 ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on June 30, 2022 in Facebook posts: President Donald Trump was in a presidential limousine as he left his Jan. 6, 2021, rally at the White House Ellipse. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • July 8, 2022 ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on July 2, 2022 in a Facebook post: \"Fox offers Chris Wallace\'s Sunday spot to Candace Owens.\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • July 7, 2022 ![](\\" ![](\\" Marjorie Taylor Greene stated on July 5, 2022 in a tweet: Says an image shows the Highland Park shooting suspect \"in jail or rehab or a psychiatric center\" before the shooting. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • July 5, 2022 ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on June 28, 2022 in a Facebook post: An image shows a “UFO photographed on June 21, 2014 by the pilot from the cockpit of an F-16 military plane flying near Lackland Air Force Base of the United States located in San Antonio, Texas.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • June 30, 2022 ![](\\" ![](\\" Greg Gutfeld stated on June 23, 2022 in a TV segment: No one “with a concealed carry permit ever committed a mass shooting.\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • June 28, 2022 ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/322c808c00e73c217d17772ddd5a0eb5.jpg\\") ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/8b142c91ebe468a84a192e6df2b7b994.jpg\\") Instagram posts stated on June 20, 2022 in an Instagram post: “Gas in Canada is $9.00 a gallon.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • June 22, 2022 ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/322c808c00e73c217d17772ddd5a0eb5.jpg\\") ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/8b142c91ebe468a84a192e6df2b7b994.jpg\\") Instagram posts stated on June 20, 2022 in an Instagram post: A compilation of images shows what Joe Biden has “done to our country.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Bill McCarthy • June 21, 2022 ### Fact-checking Trump’s whopper-laden interview with Maria Bartiromo * ![](\\" ![](\\" Donald Trump stated on September 7, 2024 in a rally in Mosinee, Wis.: Vice President Kamala Harris “cast the tiebreaking votes that caused the worst inflation in American history, costing a typical American family $28,000.” ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Louis Jacobson • September 8, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" National Republican Senatorial Committee stated on August 28, 2024 in an Instagram ad: Elissa Slotkin “gave your hard-earned tax money to illegal immigrants.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Caleb McCullough • September 6, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Instagram posts stated on September 5, 2024 in a post: Video shows Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz dancing to Beyoncé in a cowboy hat and crop top. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Sara Swann • September 6, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" X posts stated on September 3, 2024 in X posts: A group of 32 armed Venezuelans took over an apartment building in Chicago. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Sofia Ahmed • September 6, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Instagram posts stated on September 2, 2024 in una publicación en Instagram: \"Kamala Harris aboga por censurar X en Estados Unidos al estilo de Brasil si es elegida presidenta en noviembre”. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Sofia Ahmed • September 6, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Kamala Harris stated on August 28, 2024 in an ad: Project 2025 would defund K-12 schools. ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") By Samantha Putterman • September 6, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Viral image stated on September 4, 2024 in an Instagram post: “The entire family of Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz—they are all supporting Donald Trump.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Ciara O\'Rourke • September 6, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Josh Stein stated on September 5, 2024 in a press release: “Mark Robinson skips Board of Education vote on teacher bonuses to hold campaign event.” ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Paul Specht • September 6, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Viral image stated on September 4, 2024 in an Instagram post: An image shows the social media profile of the accused suspect in the Apalachee High School shooting. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Ciara O\'Rourke • September 5, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Social Media stated on August 31, 2024 in a post: McDonald’s “said they have no record whatsoever of Kamala Harris ever working at any of their locations.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Sara Swann • September 5, 2024 Load more #### Offices District of Columbia 1800 I Street NW Washington, DC 20006 Florida 801 3rd St. S St. Petersburg, FL 33701 727-821-9494 #### People * Joe Biden * Kamala Harris * Donald Trump * Mitch McConnell * Hakeem Jeffries * Ron DeSantis #### State Editions * California * Florida * Iowa * Michigan * New Hampshire * New York * North Carolina * Pennsylvania * Texas * West Virginia * Wisconsin #### About Us * Our Process * Our Staff * En Español * Who pays for PolitiFact? * Advertise with Us * Corrections and Updates * Newsletters #### RSS Feeds * Recent Articles and Fact-checks * Recent Fact-checks Suggest a Fact-check #### Follow us The Facts Newsletter Sign up Terms & Conditions Privacy Policy Copyright ©All Rights Reserved Poynter Institute 2020, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization ![\\"\\"](\\" ✕ * * *
The vaccines are going to be distributed in two weeks