Daily Kos84%
What if Trump gave an election fraud speech and nobody came? 98%
By Lisa Needham97%
7/17/2026, 3:00:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 26 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Ad Hominem, and Appeal to Emotion, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 98% saturation with 685 hits. Analysis detected 2,582 faulty-reasoning hits from 699 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 97.6% and a BS Rank of 98% (472 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 97.80% of the article peer group.
President Donald Trump and his lackeys spent the week hyping up his big Thursday night speech, prime time for the prime president, let’s goooooo!
That hype got him attention, which is what he lives for the most.
Well, after money, of course.
But having everyone speculate about just how unhinged his pronouncements would be no doubt gave him an endless series of dopamine hits for several days running.
And then the speech happened, and it was sort of a nothingburger, by Trump standards.
Well, by any standards, really.
Yes, yes, China stole our voter data or something and has 220 million voter files.
OMGGGG!
REVELATION!!
Wait, sorry.
We’re learning that such voter information is already publicly available, and some states even sell that data, so this is not really something you can pretend to be worried about, and it certainly isn’t something that warrants a prime-time five-alarm-fire kind of speech.
Yes, yes, the deep state did … something?
We’re not really clear what, but we’re sure it’s bad.
Yes, yes, if we don’t pass the SAVE act, we’re all gonna die because of all the undocumented people voting, even though, of course, that is simply not a thing that happens with any meaningful frequency whatsoever.
But even Trump seems a bit weary of banging this drum, and the whole thing had the flavor of “let’s get you to bed, Grandpa,” with Trump toddling off after only 25 minutes or so.
What Trump and his ilk are really mad about, and were reaaaaallllly mad about on Thursday in the run-up to the speech, is that some broadcast networks didn’t bother to carry his speech.
And why should they?
They’re not obliged to, especially when we know every Trump speech is not a measured, informative, nonpartisan announcement to the country, but instead just a spittle-flecked rant about his grievances.
You’ll recall that the networks declined to air then-President Joe Biden’s 2022 speech warning about the collapse of democracy because that was too boring, or too political, or both.
But Trump has become accustomed to the media covering his every move, and quite frankly, if they don’t, he’s gonna do something about it.
So he used part of his speech to whine about how NBC and ABC weren’t airing the speech, saying that it is “fraud” and should “mean a revocation of their licenses.”
It’s … fraud?
Not to carry Trump’s dumb retread of his greatest hits of election lies is … fraud?
Wait, sorry.
It’s that there is election fraud, and the networks that wouldn’t carry his speech are part of some sort of leftist “plot” to steal elections, and those networks “want to continue this fraud for whatever reason.”
The official White House Rapid Response account on X—an unbelievable, unnecessary thing—called CNN “the enemy of the people” for not carrying the speech.
Look, this stuff is indeed hilarious.
Trump is tremendously washed, too tired to even work up any real rage, but it’s also dystopian as hell.
Trump wants state-run media, and he wants it bad.
Regrettably, he’s convinced a staggering number of people that it’s Free Speech, Actually, to require broadcast media to air only things the president personally approves of and to punish them when they don’t.
It also became clear during this little rant that Trump is furious he can’t shake down the networks for more money: “They use our public multi-billion dollar in value airwaves for absolutely no money.
They pay nothing.”
Can’t wait for Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, low-key one of the worst people in this Cabinet, to open an “investigation” into the crime of not carrying Trump’s speech, an investigation that will somehow only be resolved if the networks give Trump a seven-figure bribe that we’re all pretending is for his presidential library.
Indeed, the network that is entirely bought and paid for by Trumpy crony oligarchy money, CBS Paramount, made sure to show the whole thing, as did Fox.
They understand the assignment, but sadly, the assignment was the corruption and the degradation of free speech.
And for that, they get 10s, 10s, 10s across the board.
Excellent work, guys.
Speakers
1speaker3.3%attributed speech676writer words
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100%flagged-word coverageWhite House Rapid Response account
23 attributed words100% of attributed speech98% writer coverage
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Analysis
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