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MaddowBlog-Trump advances bizarre conspiracy theory about Venezuela, 2020 election
The president was given an opportunity to knock down one of the dumbest ideas about his 2020 defeat. True to form, he did the opposite.
Trump advances bizarre conspiracy theory about Venezuela, 2020 election
— Mike Walker (@newnarrative.bsky.social) 2026-01-21T19:52:15.467Z
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-advances-bizarre-conspiracy-theory-about-venezuela-2020-election
The legal team pitched a hysterical tale involving George Soros, “communist money,” the Clinton Foundation, antifa, Cuba and possibly China. Rudy Giuliani and his colleagues also pointed the finger at Venezuela and its former president, Hugo Chávez, who’d died seven years earlier.
All of this came to mind anew watching the president’s lengthy White House press conference on Tuesday, when he fielded a related question.
.....As my MS NOW colleague Brandy Zadrozny recently explained, one of the recurring storylines among far-right conspiracy theorists is that Venezuela somehow played a role in dictating the outcome of the U.S. election in 2020 by controlling voting machines.
It’s all nonsense, of course, but almost immediately after U.S. bombs started dropping on Venezuela and Maduro was taken into custody, conspiratorial pillow executive Mike Lindell celebrated, telling The Atlantic, “I’m hoping now that Maduro will actually come clean and tell us everything about the machines and how they steal the elections.”
Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn and Infowars propagandist Alex Jones have pushed similar lines. And after conservative media personality Sean Davis wrote on social media that “it’s gonna be wild when Maduro tries to plead to lesser charges by proffering evidence that the 2020 election was stolen,” Ed Martin, Trump’s “weaponization” czar at the Justice Department, responded with a tweet of his own that consisted entirely of an exclamation point.
All of this came to mind anew watching the president’s lengthy White House press conference on Tuesday, when he fielded a related question.
Q: Now that Maduro is in custody, has any more information emerged that you could share with us regarding Venezuelan election software and Venezuelan ties to tampering with the 2020 election? Would you consider speaking to him personally?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-01-20T20:21:36.108Z
TRUMP: Yeah, they've learned some things
.....As my MS NOW colleague Brandy Zadrozny recently explained, one of the recurring storylines among far-right conspiracy theorists is that Venezuela somehow played a role in dictating the outcome of the U.S. election in 2020 by controlling voting machines.
It’s all nonsense, of course, but almost immediately after U.S. bombs started dropping on Venezuela and Maduro was taken into custody, conspiratorial pillow executive Mike Lindell celebrated, telling The Atlantic, “I’m hoping now that Maduro will actually come clean and tell us everything about the machines and how they steal the elections.”
Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn and Infowars propagandist Alex Jones have pushed similar lines. And after conservative media personality Sean Davis wrote on social media that “it’s gonna be wild when Maduro tries to plead to lesser charges by proffering evidence that the 2020 election was stolen,” Ed Martin, Trump’s “weaponization” czar at the Justice Department, responded with a tweet of his own that consisted entirely of an exclamation point.
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