MUIR: You know this, you and your allies: 60 cases in front of many judges. Many of them -- said there was no widespread fraud.
TRUMP: No judge looked at it. They said we didn't have standing. That's the other thing. They said we didn't have standing. A technicality. Can you imagine a system where a person in an election doesn't have standing, the President of the United States doesn't have standing? That's how we lost. If you look at the facts... I'll show you Georgia and I'll show you Wisconsin and I'll show you Pennsylvania and I'll show you -- we have so many facts and statistics. But you know what? That doesn't matter. Because we have to solve the problem that we have right now. That's old news.
While Trump correctly points out that courts dismissed some of his election cases on technicalities like standing, he provides no credible evidence of widespread fraud that would overturn the results, instead making vague assertions about having "so many facts and statistics" without presenting them.
1. questionable cause • Trump continues to insist that his loss in the 2020 election was caused by fraud, without presenting material evidence.
Look, there's so much proof. All you have to do is look at it. And they should have sent it back to the legislatures for approval. I got almost 75 million votes. The most votes any sitting president has ever gotten. I was told if I got 63, which was what I got in 2016, you can't be beaten. The election, people should never be thinking about an election as fraudulent. We need two things. We need walls... and we have to have good elections.
Trump asserts that "there's so much proof" but does not describe any concrete examples of such proof. The failed prediction that 63 (or 75) million votes should have been enough for Trump to win in 2020 is not proof that Biden's higher vote count was fraudulently inflated.
Without presenting empirical evidence of actual fraud or error, Trump's inference of fraud is a questionable cause fallacy.
2. appeal to authority • Trump cites Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, as an authority figure to support his claim that the world needs him back as president.
Viktor Orban, one of the most respected men -- they call him a strong man. He's a tough person. Smart. Prime Minister of Hungary. They said why is the whole world blowing up? Three years ago it wasn't. Why is it blowing up? He said because you need Trump back as president.
This fallacy relies on the perceived authority of Orban to lend credibility to Trump's statement, without providing any independent evidence or reasoning.
3. straw man and appeal to motive • Trump misrepresents the opposing stance on voting rights and inclusivity, creating an easily criticized position that does not accurately describe the opposition.
...they're trying to get them to vote. They can't even speak English.
Trump is assuming a certain motivation among those who want a more open approach on immigration policies. There are potential economic and humanitarian motivations apart from trying to "get them to vote." Merely assuming a particular self-interested motive without presenting concrete evidence to support it is a fallacious argument.
4. appeal to fear • Trump uses ominous language to provoke a sense of fear about the state of the nation.
We have a nation that is dying, David.
This aims to stoke alarmist fears, rather than relying on evidence and reasoning to persuade.
Note that there being one or more apparent fallacies in the arguments presented in this article does not mean that every argument the arguer made was fallacious, nor does it mean there are not other arguments in existence for the same or similar position that are logically valid. Also note that checking for fallacies is not the same as verification of the premises the arguer starts from, such as facts that the arguer asserts or principles that the arguer assumes as the foundation for constructing arguments. For more about this, see our 'What is Fallacy Checking?'
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