Rand Paul Gets Into Heated Spat with ABC News Host Over Election Results

Despite his best efforts, and the work of his boisterous legal team, Donald Trump was unable to convince the judicial system that he was indeed the winner of the 2020 election.  This, despite nearly 90 cases being brought before the court, and a number of high profile hearings helmed by the then-president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

For many, the attempted insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th was the last straw surrounding the narrative of a “stolen” election, after several people were killed as Trump supporters stormed the building.

But not Senator Rand Paul.  The Kentucky lawmaker is still unwilling to trust the full results of the contest, which put him at odds with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos this weekend.

Asked on ABC’s “This Week” whether the election was stolen, the Kentucky Republican responded: “What I would say is that the debate over whether or not there was fraud should occur. We never had any presentation in court where we actually looked at the evidence.” He argued that the rulings were based on the legal status of the claims, not the validity of the arguments — something that was true in some cases but by no means all of them.

Paul, an ally of former President Donald Trump who ultimately voted to certify Biden’s Electoral College win in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol aimed at stopping the count of those votes, went on to accuse the ABC host of “coming from the liberal side” and calling the disproved claims lies rather than giving them treatment as a “both sides” debate.

Then things got tense.

“Sen. Paul, I have to stop you there,” Stephanopoulos said. “No election is perfect. But there were 86 challenges filed by President Trump and his allies in court, all were dismissed. Every state certified the results after investigations, counts and recounts. The Department of Justice led by William Barr said there was no widespread evidence of fraud. Can’t you just say the words ‘This election was not stolen’?”

Paul then responded by declaring that a majority of Republicans agree with him, to which Stephanopoulus retorted, stating that the reason these Republicans feel this way is that Donald Trump fed them a “big lie” regarding the election.