Joe Raedle/Pool via AP
- Chris Wallace said he has avoided having GOP lawmakers who've made false claims about Biden's victory on his Sunday show.
- "I have purposefully not had them on, frankly, because I don't want to hear their crap," Wallace said.
- If they do come on the show, Wallace made clear that he intends to hold them accountable.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Fox News host Chris Wallace said he's avoided having GOP reps who've espoused false claims about election fraud on his Sunday show.
Speaking to Stephen Colbert on an episode of "The Late Show" that aired Wednesday, Wallace said he doesn't invite on lawmakers who've questioned the legitimacy of now President Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election.
"I have purposefully not had them on, frankly, because I don't want to hear their crap," Wallace said.
If they do come on the show, Wallace made clear that he intends to hold them accountable.
"I won't let them come on without putting them through the wringer," he told Colbert. That includes pressing the lawmakers on whether they truly believe that Biden is the "duly elected president of the United States," he said.
Right after Biden won the presidential election in November, then President Donald Trump refused to explicitly acknowledge the victory. In the hours after the race was called for Biden, Trump said the "election is far from over."
In the months that followed, he doubled down on his rhetoric and sought to overturn the results in state and federal courts across the country. The Trump campaign and the president's allies have filed, and lost, dozens of lawsuits in multiple battleground states contesting the results. Allegations of voter fraud have been struck down and disproven numerous times since Trump and his lawyers presented their arguments.
Despite no evidence of voter fraud, numerous GOP lawmakers sided with Trump. About 140 House Republicans indicated they'd vote against Biden's certification in January. Some senators, like Ted Cruz from Texas, also amplified Trump's baseless claims.
Additionally, Trump supporters adamantly adhered to false claims of voter and election fraud. Hundreds of Trump supporters descended onto the Capitol on January 6, the scheduled day for Congress to certify the results of the presidential election.
The Capitol riot, which began after Trump encouraged his supporters to protest the results of the election, has been characterized as an attempted coup.
The Republicans who've egged on these claims have chosen to "say something they know is not true" to avoid losing out on the Trump voter base, Wallace told Colbert. And watching Americans latch on to these ideas during the Capitol riot was horrendous, Wallace said.
"As I'm sitting there and watching it live on television and seeing this mob coming to the cathedral of our democracy and sitting in the chair that the president of the senate sits in and running around the rotunda, I was sickened," he said.
source https://www.businessinsider.com/chris-wallace-lawmakers-voter-fraud-wont-appear-on-fox-show-2021-9